The Moon-Voyage

By

Jules Verne

www.freeclassicebooks.com

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I - THE GUN CLUB.. 6

CHAPTER II - PRESIDENT BARBICANE'S COMMUNICATION.. 17

CHAPTER III - EFFECT OF PRESIDENT BARBICANE'S COMMUNICATION.. 27

CHAPTER IV - ANSWER FROM THE CAMBRIDGE OBSERVATORY.. 32

CHAPTER V - THE ROMANCE OF THE MOON.. 39

CHAPTER VI - WHAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE AND WHAT IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO BE BELIEVED IN THE UNITED STATES.. 48

CHAPTER VII - THE HYMN OF THE CANNON-BALL.. 55

CHAPTER VIII - HISTORY OF THE CANNON.. 69

CHAPTER IX - THE QUESTION OF POWDERS.. 79

CHAPTER X - ONE ENEMY AGAINST TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.. 89

CHAPTER XI - FLORIDA AND TEXAS.. 97

CHAPTER XII - "URBI ET ORBI.". 106

CHAPTER XIII - STONY HILL.. 114

CHAPTER XIV - PICKAXE AND TROWEL.. 123

CHAPTER XV - THE CEREMONY OF THE CASTING.. 131

CHAPTER XVI - THE COLUMBIAD.. 137

CHAPTER XVII - A TELEGRAM.. 146

CHAPTER XVIII - THE PASSENGER OF THE ATLANTA.. 148

CHAPTER XIX - A MEETING.. 160

CHAPTER XX - THRUST AND PARRY.. 171

CHAPTER XXI - HOW A FRENCHMAN SETTLES AN AFFAIR.. 186

CHAPTER XXII - THE NEW CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES.. 200

CHAPTER XXIII - THE PROJECTILE COMPARTMENT.. 208

CHAPTER XXIV - THE TELESCOPE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.. 218

CHAPTER XXV - FINAL DETAILS.. 225

CHAPTER XXVII - CLOUDY WEATHER.. 241

CHAPTER XXVIII - A NEW STAR.. 247

ROUND THE MOON.. 251

INTRODUCTION - PRELIMINARY CHAPTER- CONTAINING A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST PART OF THIS WORK TO SERVE AS PREFACE TO THE SECOND.. 251

CHAPTER I - FROM 10.20 P.M. TO 10.47 P.M.. 258

CHAPTER II - THE FIRST HALF-HOUR.. 268

CHAPTER III - TAKING POSSESSION.. 287

CHAPTER IV - A LITTLE ALGEBRA.. 300

CHAPTER V - THE TEMPERATURE OF SPACE.. 316

CHAPTER VI - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.. 331

CHAPTER VII - A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION.. 344

CHAPTER VIII - AT SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN LEAGUES.  358

CHAPTER IX - THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEVIATION.. 372

CHAPTER X - THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.. 382

CHAPTER XI - IMAGINATION AND REALITY.. 389

CHAPTER XII - OROGRAPHICAL DETAILS.. 397

CHAPTER XIII - LUNAR LANDSCAPES.. 410

CHAPTER XIV - A NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND A HALF.  421

CHAPTER XV - HYPERBOLA OR PARABOLA.. 435

CHAPTER XVI - THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.. 450

CHAPTER XVII - TYCHO.. 457

CHAPTER XVIII - GRAVE QUESTIONS.. 468

CHAPTER XIX - A STRUGGLE WITH THE IMPOSSIBLE.. 480

CHAPTER XX - THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA.. 496

CHAPTER XXI - J.T. MASTON CALLED IN.. 505

CHAPTER XXII - PICKED UP.. 517

CHAPTER XXIII - THE END.. 529

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.

*       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER I - THE GUN CLUB.

During the Federal war in the United States a new and very influential

club was established in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It is well

known with what energy the military instinct was developed amongst that

nation of shipowners, shopkeepers, and mechanics. Mere tradesmen jumped

their counters to become extempore captains, colonels, and generals

without having passed the Military School at West Point; they soon

rivalled their colleagues of the old continent, and, like them, gained

victories by dint of lavishing bullets, millions, and men.

But where Americans singularly surpassed Europeans was in the science of

ballistics, or of throwing massive weapons by the use of an engine; not

that their arms attained a higher degree of perfection, but they were of

unusual dimensions, and consequently of hitherto unknown ranges. The

English, French, and Prussians have nothing to learn about flank,

running, enfilading, or point-blank firing; but their cannon, howitzers,

and mortars are mere pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines

of American artillery.

This fact ought to astonish no one. The Yankees, the first mechanicians

in the world, are born engineers, just as Italians are musicians and

Germans metaphysicians. Thence nothing more natural than to see them

bring their audacious ingenuity to bear on the science of ballistics.

Hence those gigantic cannon, much less useful than sewing-machines, but

quite as astonishing, and much more admired. The marvels of this style

by Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman are well known. There was nothing left

the Armstrongs, Pallisers, and Treuille de Beaulieux but to bow before

their transatlantic rivals.

Therefore during the terrible struggle between Northerners and

Southerners, artillerymen were in great request; the Union newspapers

published their inventions with enthusiasm, and there was no little

tradesman nor naïf "booby" who did not bother his head day and night

with calculations about impossible trajectory engines.

Now when an American has an idea he seeks another American to share it.

If they are three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given

four, they elect a clerk, and a company is established. Five convoke a

general meeting, and the club is formed. It thus happened at Baltimore.

The first man who invented a new cannon took into partnership the first

man who cast it and the first man that bored it. Such was the nucleus of

the Gun Club. One month after its formation it numbered eighteen hundred

and thirty-three effective members, and thirty thousand five hundred and

seventy-five corresponding members.

One condition was imposed as a sine quâ non upon every one who wished

to become a member--that of having invented, or at least perfected, a

cannon; or, in default of a cannon, a firearm of some sort. But, to tell

the truth, mere inventors of fifteen-barrelled rifles, revolvers, or

sword-pistols did not enjoy much consideration. Artillerymen were always

preferred to them in every circumstance.

"The estimation in which they are held," said one day a learned orator

of the Gun Club, "is in proportion to the size of their cannon, and in

direct ratio to the square of distance attained by their projectiles!"

A little more and it would have been Newton's law of gravitation applied

to moral order.

Once the Gun Club founded, it can be easily imagined its effect upon the

inventive genius of the Americans. War-engines took colossal

proportions, and projectiles launched beyond permitted distances cut

inoffensive pedestrians to pieces. All these inventions left the timid

instruments of European artillery far behind them. This may be estimated

by the following figures:--

Formerly, "in the good old times," a thirty-six pounder, at a distance

of three hundred feet, would cut up thirty-six horses, attacked in

flank, and sixty-eight men. The art was then in its infancy.

Projectiles have since made their way. The Rodman gun that sent a

projectile weighing half a ton a distance of seven miles could easily

have cut up a hundred and fifty horses and three hundred men. There was

some talk at the Gun Club of making a solemn experiment with it. But if

the horses consented to play their part, the men unfortunately were

wanting.

However that may be, the effect of these cannon was very deadly, and at

each discharge the combatants fell like ears before a scythe. After such

projectiles what signified the famous ball which, at Coutras, in 1587,

disabled twenty-five men; and the one which, at Zorndorff, in 1758,

killed forty fantassins; and in 1742, Kesseldorf's Austrian cannon, of

which every shot levelled seventy enemies with the ground? What was the

astonishing firing at Jena or Austerlitz, which decided the fate of the

battle? During the Federal war much more wonderful things had been seen.

At the battle of Gettysburg, a conical projectile thrown by a

rifle-barrel cut up a hundred and seventy-three Confederates, and at the

passage of the Potomac a Rodman ball sent two hundred and fifteen

Southerners into an evidently better world. A formidable mortar must

also be mentioned, invented by J.T. Maston, a distinguished member and

perpetual secretary of the Gun Club, the result of which was far more

deadly, seeing that, at its trial shot, it killed three hundred and

thirty-seven persons--by bursting, it is true.

What can be added to these figures, so eloquent in themselves? Nothing.

So the following calculation obtained by the statistician Pitcairn will

be admitted without contestation: by dividing the number of victims

fallen under the projectiles by that of the members of the Gun Club, he

found that each one of them had killed, on his own account, an average

of two thousand three hundred and seventy-five men and a fraction.

By considering such a result it will be seen that the single

preoccupation of this learned society was the destruction of humanity

philanthropically, and the perfecting of firearms considered as

instruments of civilisation. It was a company of Exterminating Angels,

at bottom the best fellows in the world.

It must be added that these Yankees, brave as they have ever proved

themselves, did not confine themselves to formulae, but sacrificed

themselves to their theories. Amongst them might be counted officers of

every rank, those who had just made their début in the profession of

arms, and those who had grown old on their gun-carriage. Many whose

names figured in the book of honour of the Gun Club remained on the

field of battle, and of those who came back the greater part bore marks

of their indisputable valour. Crutches, wooden legs, articulated arms,

hands with hooks, gutta-percha jaws, silver craniums, platinum noses,

nothing was wanting to the collection; and the above-mentioned Pitcairn

likewise calculated that in the Gun Club there was not quite one arm

amongst every four persons, and only two legs amongst six.

But these valiant artillerymen paid little heed to such small matters,

and felt justly proud when the report of a battle stated the number of

victims at tenfold the quantity of projectiles expended.

One day, however, a sad and lamentable day, peace was signed by the

survivors of the war, the noise of firing gradually ceased, the mortars

were silent, the howitzers were muzzled for long enough, and the cannon,

with muzzles depressed, were stored in the arsenals, the shots were

piled up in the parks, the bloody reminiscences were effaced, cotton

shrubs grew magnificently on the well-manured fields, mourning garments

began to be worn-out, as well as sorrow, and the Gun Club had nothing

whatever to do.

Certain old hands, inveterate workers, still went on with their

calculations in ballistics; they still imagined gigantic bombs and

unparalleled howitzers. But what was the use of vain theories that could

not be put in practice? So the saloons were deserted, the servants slept

in the antechambers, the newspapers grew mouldy on the tables, from dark

corners issued sad snores, and the members of the Gun Club, formerly so

noisy, now reduced to silence by the disastrous peace, slept the sleep

of Platonic artillery!

"This is distressing," said brave Tom Hunter, whilst his wooden legs

were carbonising at the fireplace of the smoking-room. "Nothing to do!

Nothing to look forward to! What a tiresome existence! Where is the time

when cannon awoke you every morning with its joyful reports?"

"That time is over," answered dandy Bilsby, trying to stretch the arms

he had lost. "There was some fun then! You invented an howitzer, and it

was hardly cast before you ran to try it on the enemy; then you went

back to the camp with an encouragement from Sherman, or a shake of the

hands from MacClellan! But now the generals have gone back to their

counters, and instead of cannon-balls they expedite inoffensive cotton

bales! Ah, by Saint Barb! the future of artillery is lost to America!"

"Yes, Bilsby," cried Colonel Blomsberry, "it is too bad! One fine

morning you leave your tranquil occupations, you are drilled in the use

of arms, you leave Baltimore for the battle-field, you conduct yourself

like a hero, and in two years, three years at the latest, you are

obliged to leave the fruit of so many fatigues, to go to sleep in

deplorable idleness, and keep your hands in your pockets."

The valiant colonel would have found it very difficult to give such a

proof of his want of occupation, though it was not the pockets that were

wanting.

"And no war in prospect, then," said the famous J.T. Maston, scratching

his gutta-percha cranium with his steel hook; "there is not a cloud on

the horizon now that there is so much to do in the science of artillery!

I myself finished this very morning a diagram with plan, basin, and

elevation of a mortar destined to change the laws of warfare!"

"Indeed!" replied Tom Hunter, thinking involuntarily of the Honourable

J.T. Maston's last essay.

"Indeed!" answered Maston. "But what is the use of the good results of

such studies and so many difficulties conquered? It is mere waste of

time. The people of the New World seem determined to live in peace, and

our bellicose Tribune has gone as far as to predict approaching

catastrophes due to the scandalous increase of population!"

"Yet, Maston," said Colonel Blomsberry, "they are always fighting in

Europe to maintain the principle of nationalities!"

"What of that?"

"Why, there might be something to do over there, and if they accepted

our services--"

"What are you thinking of?" cried Bilsby. "Work at ballistics for the

benefit of foreigners!"

"Perhaps that would be better than not doing it at all," answered the

colonel.

"Doubtless," said J.T. Maston, "it would be better, but such an

expedient cannot be thought of."

"Why so?" asked the colonel.

"Because their ideas of advancement would be contrary to all our

American customs. Those folks seem to think that you cannot be a

general-in-chief without having served as second lieutenant, which comes

to the same as saying that no one can point a gun that has not cast one.

Now that is simply--"

"Absurd!" replied Tom Hunter, whittling the arms of his chair with his

bowie-knife; "and as things are so, there is nothing left for us but to

plant tobacco or distil whale-oil!"

"What!" shouted J.T. Maston, "shall we not employ these last years of

our existence in perfecting firearms? Will not a fresh opportunity

present itself to try the ranges of our projectiles? Will the atmosphere

be no longer illuminated by the lightning of our cannons? Won't some

international difficulty crop up that will allow us to declare war

against some transatlantic power? Won't France run down one of our

steamers, or won't England, in defiance of the rights of nations, hang

up three or four of our countrymen?"

"No, Maston," answered Colonel Blomsberry; "no such luck! No, not one of

those incidents will happen; and if one did, it would be of no use to

us. American sensitiveness is declining daily, and we are going to the

dogs!"

"Yes, we are growing quite humble," replied Bilsby.

"And we are humiliated!" answered Tom Hunter.

"All that is only too true," replied J.T. Maston, with fresh vehemence.

"There are a thousand reasons for fighting floating about, and still we

don't fight! We economise legs and arms, and that to the profit of folks

that don't know what to do with them. Look here, without looking any

farther for a motive for war, did not North America formerly belong to

the English?"

"Doubtless," answered Tom Hunter, angrily poking the fire with the end

of his crutch.

"Well," replied J.T. Maston, "why should not England in its turn belong

to the Americans?"

"It would be but justice," answered Colonel Blomsberry.

"Go and propose that to the President of the United States," cried J.T.

Maston, "and see what sort of a reception you would get."

"It would not be a bad reception," murmured Bilsby between the four

teeth he had saved from battle.

"I'faith," cried J.T. Maston, "they need not count upon my vote in the

next elections."

"Nor upon ours," answered with common accord these bellicose invalids.

"In the meantime," continued J.T. Maston, "and to conclude, if they do

not furnish me with the opportunity of trying my new mortar on a real

battle-field, I shall send in my resignation as member of the Gun Club,

and I shall go and bury myself in the backwoods of Arkansas."

"We will follow you there," answered the interlocutors of the

enterprising J.T. Maston.

Things had come to that pass, and the club, getting more excited, was

menaced with approaching dissolution, when an unexpected event came to

prevent so regrettable a catastrophe.

The very day after the foregoing conversation each member of the club

received a circular couched in these terms:--

"Baltimore, October 3rd.

"The president of the Gun Club has the honour to inform his colleagues

that at the meeting on the 5th ultimo he will make them a communication

of an extremely interesting nature. He therefore begs that they, to the

suspension of all other business, will attend, in accordance with the

present invitation,

"Their devoted colleague,

"IMPEY BARBICANE, P.G.C."

CHAPTER II - PRESIDENT BARBICANE'S COMMUNICATION.

On the 5th of October, at 8 p.m., a dense crowd pressed into the saloons

of the Gun Club, 21, Union-square. All the members of the club residing

at Baltimore had gone on the invitation of their president. The express

brought corresponding members by hundreds, and if the meeting-hall had

not been so large, the crowd of savants could not have found room in

it; they overflowed into the neighbouring rooms, down the passages, and

even into the courtyards; there they ran against the populace who were

pressing against the doors, each trying to get into the front rank, all

eager to learn the important communication of President Barbicane, all

pressing, squeezing, crushing with that liberty of action peculiar to

the masses brought up in the idea of self-government.

That evening any stranger who might have chanced to be in Baltimore

could not have obtained a place at any price in the large hall; it was

exclusively reserved to residing or corresponding members; no one else

was admitted; and the city magnates, common councillors, and select men

were compelled to mingle with their inferiors in order to catch stray

news from the interior.

The immense hall presented a curious spectacle; it was marvellously

adapted to the purpose for which it was built. Lofty pillars formed of

cannon, superposed upon huge mortars as a base, supported the fine

ironwork of the arches--real cast-iron lacework.

Trophies of blunderbusses, matchlocks, arquebuses, carbines, all sorts

of ancient or modern firearms, were picturesquely enlaced against the

walls. The gas, in full flame, came out of a thousand revolvers grouped

in the form of lustres, whilst candlesticks of pistols, and candelabra

made of guns done up in sheaves, completed this display of light. Models

of cannons, specimens of bronze, targets spotted with shot-marks,

plaques broken by the shock of the Gun Club, balls, assortments of

rammers and sponges, chaplets of shells, necklaces of projectiles,

garlands of howitzers--in a word, all the tools of the artilleryman

surprised the eyes by their wonderful arrangement, and induced a belief

that their real purpose was more ornamental than deadly.

In the place of honour was seen, covered by a splendid glass case, a

piece of breech, broken and twisted under the effort of the powder--a

precious fragment of J.T. Maston's cannon.

At the extremity of the hall the president, assisted by four

secretaries, occupied a wide platform. His chair, placed on a carved

gun-carriage, was modelled upon the powerful proportions of a 32-inch

mortar; it was pointed at an angle of 90 degs., and hung upon trunnions

so that the president could use it as a rocking-chair, very agreeable in

great heat. Upon the desk, a huge iron plate, supported upon six

carronades, stood a very tasteful inkstand, made of a beautifully-chased

Spanish piece, and a report-bell, which, when required, went off like a

revolver. During the vehement discussions this new sort of bell scarcely

sufficed to cover the voices of this legion of excited artillerymen.

In front of the desk, benches, arranged in zigzags, like the

circumvallations of intrenchment, formed a succession of bastions and

curtains where the members of the Gun Club took their seats; and that

evening, it may be said, there were plenty on the ramparts. The

president was sufficiently known for all to be assured that he would not

have called together his colleagues without a very great motive.

Impey Barbicane was a man of forty, calm, cold, austere, of a singularly

serious and concentrated mind, as exact as a chronometer, of an

imperturbable temperament and immovable character; not very chivalrous,

yet adventurous, and always bringing practical ideas to bear on the

wildest enterprises; an essential New-Englander, a Northern colonist,

the descendant of those Roundheads so fatal to the Stuarts, and the

implacable enemy of the Southern gentlemen, the ancient cavaliers of the

mother country--in a word, a Yankee cast in a single mould.

Barbicane had made a great fortune as a timber-merchant; named director

of artillery during the war, he showed himself fertile in inventions;

enterprising in his ideas, he contributed powerfully to the progress of

ballistics, gave an immense impetus to experimental researches.

He was a person of average height, having, by a rare exception in the

Gun Club, all his limbs intact. His strongly-marked features seemed to

be drawn by square and rule, and if it be true that in order to guess

the instincts of a man one must look at his profile, Barbicane seen

thus offered the most certain indications of energy, audacity, and

sang-froid.

At that moment he remained motionless in his chair, mute, absorbed, with

an inward look sheltered under his tall hat, a cylinder of black silk,

which seems screwed down upon the skull of American men.

His colleagues talked noisily around him without disturbing him; they

questioned one another, launched into the field of suppositions,

examined their president, and tried, but in vain, to make out the x of

his imperturbable physiognomy.

Just as eight o'clock struck from the fulminating clock of the large

hall, Barbicane, as if moved by a spring, jumped up; a general silence

ensued, and the orator, in a slightly emphatic tone, spoke as follows:--

"Brave colleagues,--It is some time since an unfruitful peace plunged

the members of the Gun Club into deplorable inactivity. After a period

of some years, so full of incidents, we have been obliged to abandon our

works and stop short on the road of progress. I do not fear to proclaim

aloud that any war which would put arms in our hands again would be

welcome--"

"Yes, war!" cried impetuous J.T. Maston.

"Hear, hear!" was heard on every side.

"But war," said Barbicane, "war is impossible under actual

circumstances, and, whatever my honourable interrupter may hope, long

years will elapse before our cannons thunder on a field of battle. We

must, therefore, make up our minds to it, and seek in another order of

ideas food for the activity by which we are devoured."

The assembly felt that its president was coming to the delicate point;

it redoubled its attention.

"A few months ago, my brave colleagues," continued Barbicane, "I asked

myself if, whilst still remaining in our speciality, we could not

undertake some grand experiment worthy of the nineteenth century, and if

the progress of ballistics would not allow us to execute it with

success. I have therefore sought, worked, calculated, and the conviction

has resulted from my studies that we must succeed in an enterprise that

would seem impracticable in any other country. This project, elaborated

at length, will form the subject of my communication; it is worthy of

you, worthy of the Gun Club's past history, and cannot fail to make a

noise in the world!"

"Much noise?" cried a passionate artilleryman.

"Much noise in the true sense of the word," answered Barbicane.

"Don't interrupt!" repeated several voices.

"I therefore beg of you, my brave colleagues," resumed the president,

"to grant me all your attention."

A shudder ran through the assembly. Barbicane, having with a rapid

gesture firmly fixed his hat on his head, continued his speech in a calm

tone:--

"There is not one of you, brave colleagues, who has not seen the moon,

or, at least, heard of It. Do not be astonished if I wish to speak to

you about the Queen of Night. It is, perhaps, our lot to be the

Columbuses of this unknown world. Understand me, and second me as much

as you can, I will lead you to its conquest, and its name shall be

joined to those of the thirty-six States that form the grand country of

the Union!"

"Hurrah for the moon!" cried the Gun Club with one voice.

"The moon has been much studied," resumed Barbicane; "its mass, density,

weight, volume, constitution, movements, distance, the part it plays in

the solar world, are all perfectly determined; selenographic maps have

been drawn with a perfection that equals, if it does not surpass, those

of terrestrial maps; photography has given to our satellite proofs of

incomparable beauty--in a word, all that the sciences of mathematics,

astronomy, geology, and optics can teach is known about the moon; but

until now no direct communication with it has ever been established."

A violent movement of interest and surprise welcomed this sentence of

the orator.

"Allow me," he resumed, "to recall to you in few words how certain

ardent minds, embarked upon imaginary journeys, pretended to have

penetrated the secrets of our satellite. In the seventeenth century a

certain David Fabricius boasted of having seen the inhabitants of the

moon with his own eyes. In 1649 a Frenchman, Jean Baudoin, published his

Journey to the Moon by Dominique Gonzales, Spanish Adventurer. At the

same epoch Cyrano de Bergerac published the celebrated expedition that

had so much success in France. Later on, another Frenchman (that nation

took a great deal of notice of the moon), named Fontenelle, wrote his

Plurality of Worlds, a masterpiece of his time; but science in its

progress crushes even masterpieces! About 1835, a pamphlet, translated

from the New York American, related that Sir John Herschel, sent to

the Cape of Good Hope, there to make astronomical observations, had, by

means of a telescope, perfected by interior lighting, brought the moon

to within a distance of eighty yards. Then he distinctly perceived

caverns in which lived hippopotami, green mountains with golden borders,

sheep with ivory horns, white deer, and inhabitants with membraneous

wings like those of bats. This treatise, the work of an American named

Locke, had a very great success. But it was soon found out that it was a

scientific mystification, and Frenchmen were the first to laugh at it."

"Laugh at an American!" cried J.T. Maston; "but that's a casus belli!"

"Be comforted, my worthy friend; before Frenchmen laughed they were

completely taken in by our countryman. To terminate this rapid history,

I may add that a certain Hans Pfaal, of Rotterdam, went up in a balloon

filled with a gas made from azote, thirty-seven times lighter than

hydrogen, and reached the moon after a journey of nineteen days. This

journey, like the preceding attempts, was purely imaginary, but it was

the work of a popular American writer of a strange and contemplative

genius. I have named Edgar Poe!"

"Hurrah for Edgar Poe!" cried the assembly, electrified by the words of

the president.

"I have now come to an end of these attempts which I may call purely

literary, and quite insufficient to establish any serious communications

with the Queen of Night. However, I ought to add that some practical

minds tried to put themselves into serious communication with her. Some

years ago a German mathematician proposed to send a commission of

savants to the steppes of Siberia. There, on the vast plains, immense

geometrical figures were to be traced by means of luminous reflectors;

amongst others, the square of the hypothenuse, vulgarly called the

'Ass's Bridge.' 'Any intelligent being,' said the mathematician, 'ought

to understand the scientific destination of that figure. The Selenites

(inhabitants of the moon), if they exist, will answer by a similar

figure, and, communication once established, it will be easy to create

an alphabet that will allow us to hold converse with the inhabitants of

the moon.' Thus spoke the German mathematician, but his project was not

put into execution, and until now no direct communication has existed

between the earth and her satellite. But it was reserved to the

practical genius of Americans to put itself into communication with the

sidereal world. The means of doing so are simple, easy, certain,

unfailing, and will make the subject of my proposition."

A hubbub and tempest of exclamations welcomed these words. There was not

one of the audience who was not dominated and carried away by the words

of the orator.

"Hear, hear! Silence!" was heard on all sides.

When the agitation was calmed down Barbicane resumed, in a graver tone,

his interrupted speech.

"You know," said he, "what progress the science of ballistics has made

during the last few years, and to what degree of perfection firearms

would have been brought if the war had gone on. You are not ignorant in

general that the power of resistance of cannons and the expansive force

of powder are unlimited. Well, starting from that principle, I asked

myself if, by means of sufficient apparatus, established under

determined conditions of resistance, it would not be possible to send a

cannon-ball to the moon!"

At these words an "Oh!" of stupefaction escaped from a thousand panting

breasts; then occurred a moment of silence, like the profound calm that

precedes thunder. In fact, the thunder came, but a thunder of applause,

cries, and clamour which made the meeting-hall shake again. The

president tried to speak; he could not. It was only at the end of ten

minutes that he succeeded in making himself heard.

"Let me finish," he resumed coldly. "I have looked at the question in

all its aspects, and from my indisputable calculations it results that

any projectile, hurled at an initial speed of twelve thousand yards a

second, and directed at the moon, must necessarily reach her. I have,

therefore, the honour of proposing to you, my worthy colleagues, the

attempting of this little experiment."

CHAPTER III - EFFECT OF PRESIDENT BARBICANE'S COMMUNICATION.

It is impossible to depict the effect produced by the last words of the

honourable president. What cries! what vociferations! What a succession

of groans, hurrahs, cheers, and all the onomatopoeia of which the

American language is so full. It was an indescribable hubbub and

disorder. Mouths, hands, and feet made as much noise as they could. All

the weapons in this artillery museum going off at once would not have

more violently agitated the waves of sound. That is not surprising;

there are cannoneers nearly as noisy as their cannons.

Barbicane remained calm amidst these enthusiastic clamours; perhaps he

again wished to address some words to his colleagues, for his gestures

asked for silence, and his fulminating bell exhausted itself in violent

detonations; it was not even heard. He was soon dragged from his chair,

carried in triumph, and from the hands of his faithful comrades he

passed into those of the no less excited crowd.

Nothing can astonish an American. It has often been repeated that the

word "impossible" is not French; the wrong dictionary must have been

taken by mistake. In America everything is easy, everything is simple,

and as to mechanical difficulties, they are dead before they are born.

Between the Barbicane project and its realisation not one true Yankee

would have allowed himself to see even the appearance of a difficulty.

As soon said as done.

The triumphant march of the president was prolonged during the evening.

A veritable torchlight procession--Irish, Germans, Frenchmen,

Scotchmen--all the heterogeneous individuals that compose the population

of Maryland--shouted in their maternal tongue, and the cheering was

unanimous.

Precisely as if she knew it was all about her, the moon shone out then

with serene magnificence, eclipsing other lights with her intense

irradiation. All the Yankees directed their eyes towards the shining

disc; some saluted her with their hands, others called her by the

sweetest names; between eight o'clock and midnight an optician in

Jones-Fall-street made a fortune by selling field-glasses. The Queen of

Night was looked at through them like a lady of high life. The Americans

acted in regard to her with the freedom of proprietors. It seemed as if

the blonde Phoebe belonged to these enterprising conquerors and already

formed part of the Union territory. And yet the only question was that

of sending a projectile--a rather brutal way of entering into

communication even with a satellite, but much in vogue amongst civilised

nations.

Midnight had just struck, and the enthusiasm did not diminish; it was

kept up in equal doses in all classes of the population; magistrates,

savants, merchants, tradesmen, street-porters, intelligent as well as

"green" men were moved even in their most delicate fibres. It was a

national enterprise; the high town, low town, the quays bathed by the

waters of the Patapsco, the ships, imprisoned in their docks, overflowed

with crowds intoxicated with joy, gin, and whisky; everybody talked,

argued, perorated, disputed, approved, and applauded, from the gentleman

comfortably stretched on the bar-room couch before his glass of

"sherry-cobbler" to the waterman who got drunk upon "knock-me-down" in

the dark taverns of Fell's Point.

However, about 2 a.m. the emotion became calmer. President Barbicane

succeeded in getting home almost knocked to pieces. A Hercules could not

have resisted such enthusiasm. The crowd gradually abandoned the squares

and streets. The four railroads of Ohio, Susquehanna, Philadelphia, and

Washington, which converge at Baltimore, took the heterogeneous

population to the four corners of the United States, and the town

reposed in a relative tranquillity.

It would be an error to believe that during this memorable evening

Baltimore alone was agitated. The large towns of the Union, New York,

Boston, Albany, Washington, Richmond, New Orleans, Charlestown, La

Mobile of Texas, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Florida, all shared in the

delirium. The thirty thousand correspondents of the Gun Club were

acquainted with their president's letter, and awaited with equal

impatience the famous communication of the 5th of October. The same

evening as the orator uttered his speech it ran along the telegraph

wires, across the states of the Union, with a speed of 348,447 miles a

second. It may, therefore, be said with absolute certainty that at the

same moment the United States of America, ten times as large as France,

cheered with a single voice, and twenty-five millions of hearts, swollen

with pride, beat with the same pulsation.

The next day five hundred daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly

newspapers took up the question; they examined it under its different

aspects--physical, meteorological, economical, or moral, from a

political or social point of view. They debated whether the moon was a

finished world, or if she was not still undergoing transformation. Did

she resemble the earth in the time when the atmosphere did not yet

exist? What kind of spectacle would her hidden hemisphere present to our

terrestrial spheroid? Granting that the question at present was simply

about sending a projectile to the Queen of Night, every one saw in that

the starting-point of a series of experiments; all hoped that one day

America would penetrate the last secrets of the mysterious orb, and some

even seemed to fear that her conquest would disturb the balance of power

in Europe.

The project once under discussion, not one of the papers suggested a

doubt of its realisation; all the papers, treatises, bulletins, and

magazines published by scientific, literary, or religious societies

enlarged upon its advantages, and the "Natural History Society" of

Boston, the "Science and Art Society" of Albany, the "Geographical and

Statistical Society" of New York, the "American Philosophical Society"

of Philadelphia, and the "Smithsonian Institution" of Washington sent in

a thousand letters their congratulations to the Gun Club, with immediate

offers of service and money.

It may be said that no proposition ever had so many adherents; there was

no question of hesitations, doubts, or anxieties. As to the jokes,

caricatures, and comic songs that would have welcomed in Europe, and,

above all, in France, the idea of sending a projectile to the moon, they

would have been turned against their author; all the "life-preservers"

in the world would have been powerless to guarantee him against the

general indignation. There are things that are not to be laughed at in

the New World.

Impey Barbicane became from that day one of the greatest citizens of the

United States, something like a Washington of science, and one fact

amongst several will serve to show the sudden homage which was paid by a

nation to one man.

Some days after the famous meeting of the Gun Club the manager of an

English company announced at the Baltimore Theatre a representation of

Much Ado About Nothing, but the population of the town, seeing in the

title a damaging allusion to the projects of President Barbicane,

invaded the theatre, broke the seats, and forced the unfortunate manager

to change the play. Like a sensible man, the manager, bowing to public

opinion, replaced the offending comedy by As You Like It, and for

several weeks he had fabulous houses.

CHAPTER IV - ANSWER FROM THE CAMBRIDGE OBSERVATORY.

In the meantime Barbicane did not lose an instant amidst the enthusiasm

of which he was the object. His first care was to call together his

colleagues in the board-room of the Gun Club. There, after a debate,

they agreed to consult astronomers about the astronomical part of their

enterprise. Their answer once known, they would then discuss the

mechanical means, and nothing would be neglected to assure the success

of their great experiment.

A note in precise terms, containing special questions, was drawn up and

addressed to the observatory of Cambridge in Massachusetts. This town,

where the first University of the United States was founded, is justly

celebrated for its astronomical staff. There are assembled the greatest

men of science; there is the powerful telescope which enabled Bond to

resolve the nebula of Andromeda and Clarke to discover the satellite of

Sirius. This celebrated institution was, therefore, worthy in every way

of the confidence of the Gun Club.

After two days the answer, impatiently awaited, reached the hands of

President Barbicane.

It ran as follows:--

"The Director of the Cambridge Observatory to the President of the Gun

Club at Baltimore.

"On the receipt of your favour of the 6th inst., addressed to the

Observatory of Cambridge in the name of the members of the Baltimore

Gun Club, we immediately called a meeting of our staff, who have deemed

it expedient to answer as follows:--

"The questions proposed to it were these:--

"'1. Is it possible to send a projectile to the moon?

"'2. What is the exact distance that separates the earth and her

satellite?

"'3. What would be the duration of the projectile's transit to which a

sufficient initial speed had been given, and consequently at what moment

should it be hurled so as to reach the moon at a particular point?

"'4. At what moment would the moon present the most favourable position

for being reached by the projectile?

"'5. What point in the heavens ought the cannon, destined to hurl the

projectile, be aimed at?

"'6. What place in the heavens will the moon occupy at the moment when

the projectile will start?'

"Regarding question No. 1, 'Is it possible to send a projectile to the

moon?'

"Yes, it is possible to send a projectile to the moon if it is given an

initial velocity of 1,200 yards a second. Calculations prove that this

speed is sufficient. In proportion to the distance from the earth the

force of gravitation diminishes in an inverse ratio to the square of the

distance--that is to say, that for a distance three times greater that

force is nine times less. In consequence, the weight of the projectile

will decrease rapidly, and will end by being completely annulled at the

moment when the attraction of the moon will be equal to that of the

earth--that is to say, at the 47/52 of the distance. At that moment the

projectile will have no weight at all, and if it clears that point it

will fall on to the moon only by the effect of lunar gravitation. The

theoretic possibility of the experiment is, therefore, quite

demonstrated; as to its success, that depends solely in the power of the

engine employed.

"Regarding question No. 2, 'What is the exact distance that separates

the earth from her satellite?'

"The moon does not describe a circle round the earth, but an ellipse, of

which our earth occupies one of the foci; the consequence is, therefore,

that at certain times it approaches nearer to, and at others recedes

farther from, the earth, or, in astronomical language, it has its apogee

and its perigee. At its apogee the moon is at 247,552 miles from the

earth, and at its perigee at 218,657 miles only, which makes a

difference of 28,895, or more than a ninth of the distance. The perigee

distance is, therefore, the one that should give us the basis of all

calculations.

"Regarding question No. 3, 'What would be the duration of the

projectile's transit to which a sufficient initial speed has been given,

and consequently at what moment should it be hurled so as to reach the

moon at a particular point?'

"If the projectile kept indefinitely the initial speed of 12,000 yards a

second, it would only take about nine hours to reach its destination;

but as that initial velocity will go on decreasing, it will happen,

everything calculated upon, that the projectile will take 300,000

seconds, or 83 hours and 20 minutes, to reach the point where the

terrestrial and lunar gravitations are equal, and from that point it

will fall upon the moon in 50,000 seconds, or 13 hours, 53 minutes, and

20 seconds. It must, therefore, be hurled 97 hours, 13 minutes, and 20

seconds before the arrival of the moon at the point aimed at.

"Regarding question No. 4, 'At what moment would the moon present the

most favourable position for being reached by the projectile?'

"According to what has been said above the epoch of the moon's perigee

must first be chosen, and at the moment when she will be crossing her

zenith, which will still further diminish the entire distance by a

length equal to the terrestrial radius--i.e., 3,919 miles; consequently,

the passage to be accomplished will be 214,976 miles. But the moon is

not always at her zenith when she reaches her perigee, which is once a

month. She is only under the two conditions simultaneously at long

intervals of time. This coincidence of perigee and zenith must be waited

for. It happens fortunately that on December 4th of next year the moon

will offer these two conditions; at midnight she will be at her perigee

and her zenith--that is to say, at her shortest distance from the earth

and at her zenith at the same time.

"Regarding question No. 5, 'At what point in the heavens ought the

cannon destined to hurl the projectile be aimed?'

"The preceding observations being admitted, the cannon ought to be aimed

at the zenith of the place (the zenith is the spot situated vertically

above the head of a spectator), so that its range will be perpendicular

to the plane of the horizon, and the projectile will pass the soonest

beyond the range of terrestrial gravitation. But for the moon to reach

the zenith of a place that place must not exceed in latitude the

declination of the luminary--in other words, it must be comprised

between 0° and 28° of north or south latitude. In any other place the

range must necessarily be oblique, which would seriously affect the

success of the experiment.

"Regarding question No. 6, 'What place will the moon occupy In the

heavens at the moment of the projectile's departure?'

"At the moment when the projectile is hurled into space, the moon, which

travels forward 13° 10' 35" each day, will be four times as distant from

her zenith point--i.e., by 52° 42' 20", a space which corresponds to the

distance she will travel during the transit of the projectile. But as

the deviation which the rotatory movement of the earth will impart to

the shock must also be taken into account, and as the projectile cannot

reach the moon until after a deviation equal to sixteen radii of the

earth, which, calculated upon the moon's orbit, is equal to about 11°,

it is necessary to add these 11° to those caused by the

already-mentioned delay of the moon, or, in round numbers, 64°. Thus, at

the moment of firing, the visual radius applied to the moon will

describe with the vertical line of the place an angle of 64°.

"Such are the answers to the questions proposed to the Observatory of

Cambridge by the members of the Gun Club.

"To sum up--

"1st. The cannon must be placed in a country situated between 0° and 28°

of north or south latitude.

"2nd. It must be aimed at the zenith of the place.

"3rd. The projectile must have an initial speed of 12,000 yards a

second.

"4th. It must be hurled on December 1st of next year, at 10hrs. 46mins.

40secs. p.m.

"5th. It will meet the moon four days after its departure on December

4th, at midnight precisely, at the moment she arrives at her zenith.

"The members of the Gun Club ought, therefore, at once to commence the

labour necessitated by such an enterprise, and be ready to put them into

execution at the moment fixed upon, for they will not find the moon in

the same conditions of perigee and zenith till eighteen years and eleven

days later.

"The staff of the Observatory of Cambridge puts itself entirely at their

disposition for questions of theoretic astronomy, and begs to join its

congratulations to those of the whole of America.

"On behalf of the staff,

"J.M. BELFAST,

"Director of the Observatory of Cambridge."

CHAPTER V - THE ROMANCE OF THE MOON.

A spectator endowed with infinite power of sight, and placed at the

unknown centre round which gravitates the universe, would have seen

myriads of atoms filling all space during the chaotic epoch of creation.

But by degrees, as centuries went on, a change took place; a law of

gravitation manifested itself which the wandering atoms obeyed; these

atoms, combined chemically according to their affinities, formed

themselves into molecules, and made those nebulous masses with which the

depths of the heavens are strewed.

These masses were immediately animated by a movement of rotation round

their central point. This centre, made of vague molecules, began to turn

on itself whilst progressively condensing; then, following the immutable

laws of mechanics, in proportion as its volume became diminished by

condensation its movement of rotation was accelerated, and these two

effects persisting, there resulted a principal planet, the centre of the

nebulous mass.

By watching attentively the spectator would then have seen other

molecules in the mass behave like the central planet, and condense in

the same manner by a movement of progressively-accelerated rotation, and

gravitate round it under the form of innumerable stars. The nebulae, of

which astronomers count nearly 5,000 at present, were formed.

Amongst these 5,000 nebulae there is one that men have called the Milky

Way, and which contains eighteen millions of stars, each of which has

become the centre of a solar world.

If the spectator had then specially examined amongst these eighteen

millions of stars one of the most modest and least brilliant, a star of

the fourth order, the one that proudly named itself the sun, all the

phenomena to which the formation of the universe is due would have

successively taken place under his eyes.

In fact, he would have perceived this sun still in its gaseous state,

and composed of mobile molecules; he would have perceived it turning on

its own axis to finish its work of concentration. This movement,

faithful to the laws of mechanics, would have been accelerated by the

diminution of volume, and a time would have come when the centrifugal

force would have overpowered the centripetal, which causes the molecules

all to tend towards the centre.

Then another phenomenon would have passed before the eyes of the

spectator, and the molecules situated in the plane of the equator would

have formed several concentric rings like that of Saturn round the sun.

In their turn these rings of cosmic matter, seized with a movement of

rotation round the central mass, would have been broken up into

secondary nebulae--that is to say, into planets.

If the spectator had then concentrated all his attention on these

planets he would have seen them behave exactly like the sun and give

birth to one or more cosmic rings, origin of those secondary bodies

which we call satellites.

Thus in going up from the atom to the molecule, from the molecule to the

nebulae, and from the nebulae to the principal star, from the principal

star to the sun, from the sun to the planet, and from the planet to the

satellite, we have the whole series of transformations undergone by the

celestial powers from the first days of the universe.

The sun seems lost amidst the immensities of the stellar universe, and

yet it is related, by actual theories of science, to the nebula of the

Milky Way. Centre of a world, and small as it appears amidst the

ethereal regions, it is still enormous, for its size is 1,400,000 times

that of the earth. Around it gravitate eight planets, struck off from

its own mass in the first days of creation. These are, in proceeding

from the nearest to the most distant, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars,

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Between Mars and Jupiter circulate

regularly other smaller bodies, the wandering débris, perhaps, of a

star broken up into thousands of pieces, of which the telescope has

discovered eighty-two at present. Some of these asteroids are so small

that they could be walked round in a single day by going at a gymnastic

pace.

Of these attendant bodies which the sun maintains in their elliptical

orbit by the great law of gravitation, some possess satellites of their

own. Uranus has eight, Saturn eight, Jupiter four, Neptune three

perhaps, and the Earth one; this latter, one of the least important of

the solar world, is called the Moon, and it is that one that the

enterprising genius of the Americans means to conquer.

The Queen of Night, from her relative proximity and the spectacle

rapidly renewed of her different phases, at first divided the attention

of the inhabitants of the earth with the sun; but the sun tires the

eyesight, and the splendour of its light forces its admirers to lower

their eyes.

The blonde Phoebe, more humane, graciously allows herself to be seen in

her modest grace; she is gentle to the eye, not ambitious, and yet she

sometimes eclipses her brother the radiant Apollo, without ever being

eclipsed by him. The Mahommedans understood what gratitude they owed to

this faithful friend of the earth, and they ruled their months at 29-1/2

days on her revolution.

The first people of the world dedicated particular worship to this

chaste goddess. The Egyptians called her Isis, the Phoenicians Astarte,

the Greeks Phoebe, daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and they explained

her eclipses by the mysterious visits of Diana and the handsome

Endymion. The mythological legend relates that the Nemean lion traversed

the country of the moon before its apparition upon earth, and the poet

Agesianax, quoted by Plutarch, celebrated in his sweet lines its soft

eyes, charming nose, and admirable mouth, formed by the luminous parts

of the adorable Selene.

But though the ancients understood the character, temperament, and, in a

word, moral qualities of the moon from a mythological point of view, the

most learned amongst them remained very ignorant of selenography.

Several astronomers, however, of ancient times discovered certain

particulars now confirmed by science. Though the Arcadians pretended

they had inhabited the earth at an epoch before the moon existed, though

Simplicius believed her immovable and fastened to the crystal vault,

though Tacitus looked upon her as a fragment broken off from the solar

orbit, and Clearch, the disciple of Aristotle, made of her a polished

mirror upon which were reflected the images of the ocean--though, in

short, others only saw in her a mass of vapours exhaled by the earth, or

a globe half fire and half ice that turned on itself, other savants,

by means of wise observations and without optical instruments, suspected

most of the laws that govern the Queen of Night.

Thus Thales of Miletus, B.C. 460, gave out the opinion that the moon was

lighted up by the sun. Aristarchus of Samos gave the right explanation

of her phases. Cleomenus taught that she shone by reflected light.

Berose the Chaldean discovered that the duration of her movement of

rotation was equal to that of her movement of revolution, and he thus

explained why the moon always presented the same side. Lastly,

Hipparchus, 200 years before the Christian era, discovered some

inequalities in the apparent movements of the earth's satellite.

These different observations were afterwards confirmed, and other

astronomers profited by them. Ptolemy in the second century, and the

Arabian Aboul Wefa in the tenth, completed the remarks of Hipparchus on

the inequalities that the moon undergoes whilst following the undulating

line of its orbit under the action of the sun. Then Copernicus, in the

fifteenth century, and Tycho Brahe, in the sixteenth, completely exposed

the system of the world and the part that the moon plays amongst the

celestial bodies.

At that epoch her movements were pretty well known, but very little of

her physical constitution was known. It was then that Galileo explained

the phenomena of light produced in certain phases by the existence of

mountains, to which he gave an average height of 27,000 feet.

After him, Hevelius, an astronomer of Dantzig, lowered the highest

altitudes to 15,000 feet; but his contemporary, Riccioli, brought them

up again to 21,000 feet.

Herschel, at the end of the eighteenth century, armed with a powerful

telescope, considerably reduced the preceding measurements. He gave a

height of 11,400 feet to the highest mountains, and brought down the

average of different heights to little more than 2,400 feet. But

Herschel was mistaken too, and the observations of Schroeter, Louville,

Halley, Nasmyth, Bianchini, Pastorff, Lohrman, Gruithuysen, and

especially the patient studies of MM. Boeer and Moedler, were necessary

to definitely resolve the question. Thanks to these savants, the

elevation of the mountains of the moon is now perfectly known. Boeer and

Moedler measured 1,905 different elevations, of which six exceed 15,000

feet and twenty-two exceed 14,400 feet. Their highest summit towers to a

height of 22,606 feet above the surface of the lunar disc.

At the same time the survey of the moon was being completed; she

appeared riddled with craters, and her essentially volcanic nature was

affirmed by each observation. From the absence of refraction in the rays

of the planets occulted by her it is concluded that she can have no

atmosphere. This absence of air entails absence of water; it therefore

became manifest that the Selenites, in order to live under such

conditions, must have a special organisation, and differ singularly from

the inhabitants of the earth.

Lastly, thanks to new methods, more perfected instruments searched the

moon without intermission, leaving not a point of her surface

unexplored, and yet her diameter measures 2,150 miles; her surface is

one-thirteenth of the surface of the globe, and her volume

one-forty-ninth of the volume of the terrestrial spheroid; but none of

her secrets could escape the astronomers' eyes, and these clever

savants carried their wonderful observations still further.

Thus they remarked that when the moon was at her full the disc appeared

in certain places striped with white lines, and during her phases

striped with black lines. By prosecuting the study of these with greater

precision they succeeded in making out the exact nature of these lines.

They are long and narrow furrows sunk between parallel ridges, bordering

generally upon the edges of the craters; their length varied from ten to

one hundred miles, and their width was about 1,600 yards. Astronomers

called them furrows, and that was all they could do; they could not

ascertain whether they were the dried-up beds of ancient rivers or not.

The Americans hope, some day or other, to determine this geological

question. They also undertake to reconnoitre the series of parallel

ramparts discovered on the surface of the moon by Gruithuysen, a learned

professor of Munich, who considered them to be a system of elevated

fortifications raised by Selenite engineers. These two still obscure

points, and doubtless many others, can only be definitely settled by

direct communication with the moon.

As to the intensity of her light there is nothing more to be learnt; it

is 300,000 times weaker than that of the sun, and its heat has no

appreciable action upon thermometers; as to the phenomenon known as the

"ashy light," it is naturally explained by the effect of the sun's rays

transmitted from the earth to the moon, and which seem to complete the

lunar disc when it presents a crescent form during its first and last

phases.

Such was the state of knowledge acquired respecting the earth's

satellite which the Gun Club undertook to perfect under all its aspects,

cosmographical, geographical, geological, political, and moral.

CHAPTER VI - WHAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE AND WHAT IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO BE BELIEVED IN THE UNITED STATES.

The immediate effect of Barbicane's proposition was that of bringing out

all astronomical facts relative to the Queen of Night. Everybody began

to study her assiduously. It seemed as if the moon had appeared on the

horizon for the first time, and that no one had ever seen her in the sky

before. She became the fashion; she was the lion of the day, without

appearing less modest on that account, and took her place amongst the

"stars" without being any the prouder. The newspapers revived old

anecdotes in which this "Sun of the wolves" played a part; they recalled

the influence which the ignorance of past ages had ascribed to her; they

sang about her in every tone; a little more and they would have quoted

her witty sayings; the whole of America was filled with selenomania.

The scientific journals treated the question which touched upon the

enterprise of the Gun Club more specially; they published the letter

from the Observatory of Cambridge, they commented upon it and approved

of it without reserve.

In short, even the most ignorant Yankee was no longer allowed to be

ignorant of a single fact relative to his satellite, nor, to the oldest

women amongst them, to have any superstitions about her left. Science

flooded them; it penetrated into their eyes and ears; it was impossible

to be an ass--in astronomy.

Until then many people did not know how the distance between the earth

and the moon had been calculated. This fact was taken advantage of to

explain to them that it was done by measuring the parallax of the moon.

If the word "parallax" seemed new to them, they were told it was the

angle formed by two straight lines drawn from either extremity of the

earth's radius to the moon. If they were in doubt about the perfection

of this method, it was immediately proved to them that not only was the

mean distance 234,347 miles, but that astronomers were right to within

seventy miles.

To those who were not familiar with the movements of the moon, the

newspapers demonstrated daily that she possesses two distinct movements,

the first being that of rotation upon her axis, the second that of

revolution round the earth, accomplishing both in the same time--that is

to say, in 27-1/3 days.

The movement of rotation is the one that causes night and day on the

surface of the moon, only there is but one day and one night in a lunar

month, and they each last 354-1/3 hours. But, happily, the face, turned

towards the terrestrial globe, is lighted by it with an intensity equal

to the light of fourteen moons. As to the other face, the one always

invisible, it has naturally 354 hours of absolute night, tempered only

by "the pale light that falls from the stars." This phenomenon is due

solely to the peculiarity that the movements of rotation and revolution

are accomplished in rigorously equal periods, a phenomenon which,

according to Cassini and Herschel, is common to the satellites of

Jupiter, and, very probably to the other satellites.

Some well-disposed but rather unyielding minds did not quite understand

at first how, if the moon invariably shows the same face to the earth

during her revolution, she describes one turn round herself in the same

period of time. To such it was answered--"Go into your dining-room, and

turn round the table so as always to keep your face towards the centre;

when your circular walk is ended you will have described one circle

round yourselves, since your eye will have successively traversed every

point of the room. Well, then, the room is the heavens, the table is the

earth, and you are the moon!"

And they go away delighted with the comparison.

Thus, then, the moon always presents the same face to the earth; still,

to be quite exact, it should be added that in consequence of certain

fluctuations from north to south and from west to east, called

libration, she shows rather more than the half of her disc, about 0.57.

When the ignoramuses knew as much as the director of the Cambridge

Observatory about the moon's movement of rotation they began to make

themselves uneasy about her movement of revolution round the earth, and

twenty scientific reviews quickly gave them the information they wanted.

They then learnt that the firmament, with its infinite stars, may be

looked upon as a vast dial upon which the moon moves, indicating the

time to all the inhabitants of the earth; that it is in this movement

that the Queen of Night shows herself in her different phases, that she

is full when she is in opposition with the sun--that is to say, when the

three bodies are on a line with each other, the earth being in the

centre; that the moon is new when she is in conjunction with the

sun--that is to say, when she is between the sun and the earth; lastly,

that the moon is in her first or last quarter when she makes, with the

sun and the earth, a right angle of which she occupies the apex.

Some perspicacious Yankees inferred in consequence that eclipses could

only take place at the periods of conjunction or opposition, and their

reasoning was just. In conjunction the moon can eclipse the sun, whilst

in opposition it is the earth that can eclipse him in her turn; and the

reason these eclipses do not happen twice in a lunar month is because

the plane upon which the moon moves is elliptical like that of the

earth.

As to the height which the Queen of Night can attain above the horizon,

the letter from the Observatory of Cambridge contained all that can be

said about it. Every one knew that this height varies according to the

latitude of the place where the observation is taken. But the only zones

of the globe where the moon reaches her zenith--that is to say, where

she is directly above the heads of the spectators--are necessarily

comprised between the 28th parallels and the equator. Hence the

important recommendation given to attempt the experiment upon some point

in this part of the globe, in order that the projectile may be hurled

perpendicularly, and may thus more quickly escape the attraction of

gravitation. This was a condition essential to the success of the

enterprise, and public opinion was much exercised thereupon.

As to the line followed by the moon in her revolution round the earth,

the Observatory of Cambridge had demonstrated to the most ignorant that

it is an ellipse of which the earth occupies one of the foci. These

elliptical orbits are common to all the planets as well as to all the

satellites, and rational mechanism rigorously proves that it could not

be otherwise. It was clearly understood that when at her apogee the moon

was farthest from the earth, and when at her perigee she was nearest to

our planet.

This, therefore, was what every American knew whether he wished to or

no, and what no one could decently be ignorant of. But if these true

principles rapidly made their way, certain illusive fears and many

errors were with difficulty cleared away.

Some worthy people maintained, for instance, that the moon was an

ancient comet, which, whilst travelling along its elongated orbit round

the sun, passed near to the earth, and was retained in her circle of

attraction. The drawing-room astronomers pretended to explain thus the

burnt aspect of the moon, a misfortune of which they accused the sun.

Only when they were told to notice that comets have an atmosphere, and

that the moon has little or none, they did not know what to answer.

Others belonging to the class of "Shakers" manifested certain fears

about the moon; they had heard that since the observations made in the

times of the Caliphs her movement of revolution had accelerated in a

certain proportion; they thence very logically concluded that an

acceleration of movement must correspond to a diminution in the distance

between the two bodies, and that this double effect going on infinitely

the moon would one day end by falling into the earth. However, they were

obliged to reassure themselves and cease to fear for future generations

when they were told that according to the calculations of Laplace, an

illustrious French mathematician, this acceleration of movement was

restricted within very narrow limits, and that a proportional diminution

will follow it. Thus the equilibrium of the solar world cannot be

disturbed in future centuries.

Lastly there was the superstitious class of ignoramuses to be dealt

with; these are not content with being ignorant; they know what does not

exist, and about the moon they know a great deal. Some of them

considered her disc to be a polished mirror by means of which people

might see themselves from different points on the earth, and communicate

their thoughts to one another. Others pretended that out of 1,000 new

moons 950 had brought some notable change, such as cataclysms,

revolutions, earthquakes, deluges, &c.; they therefore believed in the

mysterious influence of the Queen of Night on human destinies; they

think that every Selenite is connected by some sympathetic tie with each

inhabitant of the earth; they pretend, with Dr. Mead, that she entirely

governs the vital system--that boys are born during the new moon and

girls during her last quarter, &c., &c. But at last it became necessary

to give up these vulgar errors, to come back to truth; and if the moon,

stripped of her influence, lost her prestige in the minds of courtesans

of every power, if some turned their backs on her, the immense majority

were in her favour. As to the Yankees, they had no other ambition than

that of taking possession of this new continent of the sky, and to plant

upon its highest summit the star-spangled banner of the United States of

America.

CHAPTER VII - THE HYMN OF THE CANNON-BALL.

The Cambridge Observatory had, in its memorable letter of October 7th,

treated the question from an astronomical point of view--the mechanical

point had still to be treated. It was then that the practical

difficulties would have seemed insurmountable to any other country but

America; but there they were looked upon as play.

President Barbicane had, without losing any time, nominated a working

committee in the heart of the Gun Club. This committee was in three

sittings to elucidate the three great questions of the cannon, the

projectile, and the powder. It was composed of four members very learned

upon these matters. Barbicane had the casting vote, and with him were

associated General Morgan, Major Elphinstone, and, lastly, the

inevitable J.T. Maston, to whom were confided the functions of

secretary.

On the 8th of October the committee met at President Barbicane's house,

No. 3, Republican-street; as it was important that the stomach should

not trouble so important a debate, the four members of the Gun Club took

their seats at a table covered with sandwiches and teapots. J.T. Maston

immediately screwed his pen on to his steel hook and the business began.

Barbicane opened the meeting as follows:--

"Dear colleagues," said he, "we have to solve one of the more important

problems in ballistics--that greatest of sciences which treats of the

movement of projectiles--that is to say, of bodies hurled into space by

some power of impulsion and then left to themselves."

"Oh, ballistics, ballistics!" cried J.T. Maston in a voice of emotion.

"Perhaps," continued Barbicane, "the most logical thing would be to

consecrate this first meeting to discussing the engine."

"Certainly," answered General Morgan.

"Nevertheless," continued Barbicane, "after mature deliberation, it

seems to me that the question of the projectile ought to precede that of

the cannon, and that the dimensions of the latter ought to depend upon

the dimensions of the former."

J.T. Maston here interrupted the president, and was heard with the

attention which his magnificent past career deserved.

"My dear friends," said he in an inspired tone, "our president is right

to give the question of the projectile the precedence of every other;

the cannon-ball we mean to hurl at the moon will be our messenger, our

ambassador, and I ask your permission to regard it from an entirely

moral point of view."

This new way of looking at a projectile excited the curiosity of the

members of the committee; they therefore listened attentively to the

words of J.T. Maston.

"My dear colleagues," he continued, "I will be brief. I will lay aside

the material projectile--the projectile that kills--in order to take up

the mathematical projectile--the moral projectile. A cannon-ball is to

me the most brilliant manifestation of human power, and by creating it

man has approached nearest to the Creator!"

"Hear, hear!" said Major Elphinstone.

"In fact," cried the orator, "if God has made the stars and the planets,

man has made the cannon-ball--that criterion of terrestrial speed--that

reduction of bodies wandering in space which are really nothing but

projectiles. Let Providence claim the speed of electricity, light, the

stars, comets, planets, satellites, sound, and wind! But ours is the

speed of the cannon-ball--a hundred times greater than that of trains

and the fastest horses!"

J.T. Maston was inspired; his accents became quite lyrical as he chanted

the hymn consecrated to the projectile.

"Would you like figures?" continued he; "here are eloquent ones. Take

the simple 24 pounder; though it moves 80,000 times slower than

electricity, 64,000 times slower than light, 76 times slower than the

earth in her movement of translation round the sun, yet when it leaves

the cannon it goes quicker than sound; it goes at the rate of 14 miles a

minute, 840 miles an hour, 20,100 miles a day--that is to say, at the

speed of the points of the equator in the globe's movement of rotation,

7,336,500 miles a year. It would therefore take 11 days to get to the

moon, 12 years to get to the sun, 360 years to reach Neptune, at the

limits of the solar world. That is what this modest cannon-ball, the

work of our hands, can do! What will it be, therefore, when, with twenty

times that speed, we shall hurl it with a rapidity of seven miles a

second? Ah! splendid shot! superb projectile! I like to think you will

be received up there with the honours due to a terrestrial ambassador!"

Cheers greeted this brilliant peroration, and J.T. Maston, overcome with

emotion, sat down amidst the felicitations of his colleagues.

"And now," said Barbicane, "that we have given some time to poetry, let

us proceed to facts."

"We are ready," answered the members of the committee as they each

demolished half-a-dozen sandwiches.

"You know what problem it is we have to solve," continued the president;

"it is that of endowing a projectile with a speed of 12,000 yards per

second. I have every reason to believe that we shall succeed, but at

present let us see what speeds we have already obtained; General Morgan

can edify us upon that subject."

"So much the more easily," answered the general, "because during the war

I was a member of the Experiment Commission. The 100-pound cannon of

Dahlgren, with a range of 5,000 yards, gave their projectiles an initial

speed of 500 yards a second."

"Yes; and the Rodman Columbiad?" (the Americans gave the name of

"Columbiad" to their enormous engines of destruction) asked the

president.

"The Rodman Columbiad, tried at Fort Hamilton, near New York, hurled a

projectile, weighing half a ton, a distance of six miles, with a speed

of 800 yards a second, a result which neither Armstrong nor Palliser has

obtained in England."

"Englishmen are nowhere!" said J.T. Maston, pointing his formidable

steel hook eastward.

"Then," resumed Barbicane, "a speed of 800 yards is the maximum obtained

at present."

"Yes," answered Morgan.

"I might add, however," replied J.T. Maston, "that if my mortar had not

been blown up--"

"Yes, but it was blown up," replied Barbicane with a benevolent gesture.

"We must take the speed of 800 yards for a starting point. We must keep

till another meeting the discussion of the means used to produce this

speed; allow me to call your attention to the dimensions which our

projectile must have. Of course it must be something very different to

one of half a ton weight."

"Why?" asked the major.

"Because," quickly answered J.T. Maston, "it must be large enough to

attract the attention of the inhabitants of the moon, supposing there

are any."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "and for another reason still more

important."

"What do you mean, Barbicane?" asked the major.

"I mean that it is not enough to send up a projectile and then to think

no more about it; we must follow it in its transit."

"What?" said the general, slightly surprised at the proposition.

"Certainly," replied Barbicane, like a man who knew what he was saying,

"or our experiment will be without result."

"But then," replied the major, "you will have to give the projectile

enormous dimensions."

"No. Please grant me your attention. You know that optical instruments

have acquired great perfection; certain telescopes increase objects six

thousand, and bring the moon to within a distance of forty miles. Now at

that distance objects sixty feet square are perfectly visible. The power

of penetration of the telescope has not been increased, because that

power is only exercised to the detriment of their clearness, and the

moon, which is only a reflecting mirror, does not send a light intense

enough for the telescopes to increase objects beyond that limit."

"Very well, then, what do you mean to do?" asked the general. "Do you

intend giving a diameter of sixty feet to your projectile?"

"No."

"You are not going to take upon yourself the task of making the moon

more luminous?"

"I am, though."

"That's rather strong!" exclaimed Maston.

"Yes, but simple," answered Barbicane. "If I succeed in lessening the

density of the atmosphere which the moon's light traverses, shall I not

render that light more intense?"

"Evidently."

"In order to obtain that result I shall only have to establish my

telescope upon some high mountain. We can do that."

"I give in," answered the major; "you have such a way of simplifying

things! What enlargement do you hope to obtain thus?"

"One of 48,000 times, which will bring the moon within five miles only,

and objects will only need a diameter of nine feet."

"Perfect!" exclaimed J.T. Maston; "then our projectile will have a

diameter of nine feet?"

"Precisely."

"Allow me to inform you, however," returned Major Elphinstone, "that its

weight will still be--"

"Oh, major!" answered Barbicane, "before discussing its weight allow me

to tell you that our forefathers did marvels in that way. Far be it from

me to pretend that ballistics have not progressed, but it is well to

know that in the Middle Ages surprising results were obtained, I dare

affirm, even more surprising than ours."

"Justify your statement," exclaimed J.T. Maston.

"Nothing is easier," answered Barbicane; "I can give you some examples.

At the siege of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in 1453, they hurled

stone bullets that weighed 1,900 lbs.; at Malta, in the time of its

knights, a certain cannon of Fort Saint Elme hurled projectiles weighing

2,500 lbs. According to a French historian, under Louis XI. a mortar

hurled a bomb of 500 lbs. only; but that bomb, fired at the Bastille, a

place where mad men imprisoned wise ones, fell at Charenton, where wise

men imprison mad ones."

"Very well," said J.T. Maston.

"Since, what have we seen, after all? The Armstrong cannons hurl

projectiles of 500 lbs., and the Rodman Columbiads projectiles of half a

ton! It seems, then, that if projectiles have increased in range they

have lost in weight. Now, if we turn our efforts in that direction, we

must succeed with the progress of the science in doubling the weight of

the projectiles of Mahomet II. and the Knights of Malta."

"That is evident," answered the major; "but what metal do you intend to

employ for your own projectile?"

"Simply cast-iron," said General Morgan.

"Cast-iron!" exclaimed J.T. Maston disdainfully, "that's very common for

a bullet destined to go to the moon."

"Do not let us exaggerate, my honourable friend," answered Morgan;

"cast-iron will be sufficient."

"Then," replied Major Elphinstone, "as the weight of the projectile is

in proportion to its volume, a cast-iron bullet, measuring nine feet in

diameter, will still be frightfully heavy."

"Yes, if it be solid, but not if it be hollow," said Barbicane.

"Hollow!--then it will be an obus?"

"In which we can put despatches," replied J.T. Maston, "and specimens of

our terrestrial productions."

"Yes, an obus," answered Barbicane; "that is what it must be; a solid

bullet of 108 inches would weigh more than 200,000 lbs., a weight

evidently too great; however, as it is necessary to give the projectile

a certain stability, I propose to give it a weight of 20,000 lbs."

"What will be the thickness of the metal?" asked the major.

"If we follow the usual proportions," replied Morgan, "a diameter of 800

inches demands sides two feet thick at least."

"That would be much too thick," answered Barbicane; "we do not want a

projectile to pierce armour-plate; it only needs sides strong enough to

resist the pressure of the powder-gas. This, therefore, is the

problem:--What thickness ought an iron obus to have in order to weigh

only 20,000 lbs.? Our clever calculator, Mr. Maston, will tell us at

once."

"Nothing is easier," replied the honourable secretary.

So saying, he traced some algebraical signs on the paper, amongst which

n^2 and x^2 frequently appeared. He even seemed to extract from them a

certain cubic root, and said--

"The sides must be hardly two inches thick."

"Will that be sufficient?" asked the major doubtfully.

"No," answered the president, "certainly not."

"Then what must be done?" resumed Elphinstone, looking puzzled.

"We must use another metal instead of cast-iron."

"Brass?" suggested Morgan.

"No; that is too heavy too, and I have something better than that to

propose."

"What?" asked the major.

"Aluminium," answered Barbicane.

"Aluminium!" cried all the three colleagues of the president.

"Certainly, my friends. You know that an illustrious French chemist,

Henry St. Claire Deville, succeeded in 1854 in obtaining aluminium in a

compact mass. This precious metal possesses the whiteness of silver, the

indestructibility of gold, the tenacity of iron, the fusibility of

copper, the lightness of glass; it is easily wrought, and is very widely

distributed in nature, as aluminium forms the basis of most rocks; it is

three times lighter than iron, and seems to have been created expressly

to furnish us with the material for our projectile!"

"Hurrah for aluminium!" cried the secretary, always very noisy in his

moments of enthusiasm.

"But, my dear president," said the major, "is not aluminium quoted

exceedingly high?"

"It was so," answered Barbicane; "when first discovered a pound of

aluminium cost 260 to 280 dollars; then it fell to twenty-seven dollars,

and now it is worth nine dollars."

"But nine dollars a pound," replied the major, who did not easily give

in; "that is still an enormous price."

"Doubtless, my dear major; but not out of reach."

"What will the projectile weigh, then?" asked Morgan.

"Here is the result of my calculations," answered Barbicane. "A

projectile of 108 inches in diameter and 12 inches thick would weigh, if

it were made of cast-iron, 67,440 lbs.; cast in aluminium it would be

reduced to 19,250 lbs."

"Perfect!" cried Maston; "that suits our programme capitally."

"Yes," replied the major; "but do you not know that at nine dollars a

pound the projectile would cost--"

"One hundred seventy-three thousand and fifty dollars. Yes, I know that;

but fear nothing, my friends; money for our enterprise will not be

wanting, I answer for that."

"It will be showered upon us," replied J.T. Maston.

"Well, what do you say to aluminium?" asked the president.

"Adopted," answered the three members of the committee.

"As to the form of the projectile," resumed Barbicane, "it is of little

consequence, since, once the atmosphere cleared, it will find itself in

empty space; I therefore propose a round ball, which will turn on

itself, if it so pleases."

Thus ended the first committee meeting. The question of the projectile

was definitely resolved upon, and J.T. Maston was delighted with the

idea of sending an aluminium bullet to the Selenites, "as it will give

them no end of an idea of the inhabitants of the earth!"

CHAPTER VIII - HISTORY OF THE CANNON.

The resolutions passed at this meeting produced a great effect outside.

Some timid people grew alarmed at the idea of a projectile weighing

20,000 lbs. hurled into space. People asked what cannon could ever

transmit an initial speed sufficient for such a mass. The report of the

second meeting was destined to answer these questions victoriously.

The next evening the four members of the Gun Club sat down before fresh

mountains of sandwiches and a veritable ocean of tea. The debate then

began.

"My dear colleagues," said Barbicane, "we are going to occupy ourselves

with the construction of the engine, its length, form, composition, and

weight. It is probable that we shall have to give it gigantic

dimensions, but, however great our difficulties might be, our industrial

genius will easily overcome them. Will you please listen to me and

spare objections for the present? I do not fear them."

An approving murmur greeted this declaration.

"We must not forget," resumed Barbicane, "to what point our yesterday's

debate brought us; the problem is now the following: how to give an

initial speed of 12,000 yards a second to a shot 108 inches in diameter

weighing 20,000 lbs.

"That is the problem indeed," answered Major Elphinstone.

"When a projectile is hurled into space," resumed Barbicane, "what

happens? It is acted upon by three independent forces, the resistance of

the medium, the attraction of the earth, and the force of impulsion with

which it is animated. Let us examine these three forces. The resistance

of the medium--that is to say, the resistance of the air--is of little

importance. In fact, the terrestrial atmosphere is only forty miles

deep. With a rapidity of 12,000 yards the projectile will cross that in

five seconds, and this time will be short enough to make the resistance

of the medium insignificant. Let us now pass to the attraction of the

earth--that is to say, to the weight of the projectile. We know that

that weight diminishes in an inverse ratio to the square of

distances--in fact, this is what physics teach us: when a body left to

itself falls on the surface of the earth, it falls 15 feet in the first

second, and if the same body had to fall 257,542 miles--that is to say,

the distance between the earth and the moon--its fall would be reduced

to half a line in the first second. That is almost equivalent to

immobility. The question is, therefore, how progressively to overcome

this law of gravitation. How shall we do it? By the force of impulsion?"

"That is the difficulty," answered the major.

"That is it indeed," replied the president. "But we shall triumph over

it, for this force of impulsion we want depends on the length of the

engine and the quantity of powder employed, the one only being limited

by the resistance of the other. Let us occupy ourselves, therefore,

to-day with the dimensions to be given to the cannon. It is quite

understood that we can make it, as large as we like, seeing it will not

have to be moved."

"All that is evident," replied the general.

"Until now," said Barbicane, "the longest cannon, our enormous

Columbiads, have not been more than twenty-five feet long; we shall

therefore astonish many people by the dimensions we shall have to

adopt."

"Certainly," exclaimed J.T. Maston. "For my part, I ask for a cannon

half a mile long at least!"

"Half a mile!" cried the major and the general.

"Yes, half a mile, and that will be half too short."

"Come, Maston," answered Morgan, "you exaggerate."

"No, I do not," said the irate secretary; "and I really do not know why

you tax me with exaggeration."

"Because you go too far."

"You must know, sir," answered J.T. Maston, looking dignified, "that an

artilleryman is like a cannon-ball, he can never go too far."

The debate was getting personal, but the president interfered.

"Be calm, my friends, and let us reason it out. We evidently want a gun

of great range, as the length of the engine will increase the detention

of gas accumulated behind the projectile, but it is useless to overstep

certain limits."

"Perfectly," said the major.

"What are the usual rules in such a case? Ordinarily the length of a

cannon is twenty or twenty-five times the diameter of the projectile,

and it weighs 235 to 240 times its weight."

"It is not enough," cried J.T. Maston with impetuosity.

"I agree to that, my worthy friend, and in fact by keeping that

proportion for a projectile nine feet wide, weighing 30,000 lbs., the

engine would only have a length of 225 feet and a weight of 7,200,000

lbs."

"That is ridiculous," resumed J.T. Maston. "You might as well take a

pistol."

"I think so too," answered Barbicane; "that is why I propose to

quadruple that length, and to construct a cannon 900 feet long."

The general and the major made some objections, but, nevertheless, this

proposition, strongly supported by the secretary, was definitely

adopted.

"Now," said Elphinstone, "what thickness must we give its sides?"

"A thickness of six feet," answered Barbicane.

"You do not think of raising such a mass upon a gun-carriage?" asked the

major.

"That would be superb, however! said J.T. Maston.

"But impracticable," answered Barbicane. "No, I think of casting this

engine in the ground itself, binding it up with wrought-iron hoops, and

then surrounding it with a thick mass of stone and cement masonry. When

it is cast it must be bored with great precision so as to prevent

windage, so there will be no loss of gas, and all the expansive force of

the powder will be employed in the propulsion."

"Hurrah! hurrah!" said Maston, "we have our cannon."

"Not yet," answered Barbicane, calming his impatient friend with his

hand.

"Why not?"

"Because we have not discussed its form. Shall it be a cannon, howitzer,

or a mortar?"

"A cannon," replied Morgan.

"A howitzer," said the major.

"A mortar," exclaimed J.T. Maston.

A fresh discussion was pending, each taking the part of his favourite

weapon, when the president stopped it short.

"My friends," said he, "I will soon make you agree. Our Columbiad will

be a mixture of all three. It will be a cannon, because the

powder-magazine will have the same diameter as the chamber. It will be a

howitzer, because it will hurl an obus. Lastly, it will be a mortar,

because it will be pointed at an angle of 90°, and that without any

chance of recoil; unalterably fixed to the ground, it will communicate

to the projectile all the power of impulsion accumulated in its body."

"Adopted, adopted," answered the members of the committee.

"One question," said Elphinstone, "and will this canobusomortar be

rifled?"

"No," answered Barbicane. "No, we must have an enormous initial speed,

and you know very well that a shot leaves a rifle less rapidly than a

smooth-bore."

"True," answered the major.

"Well, we have it this time," repeated J.T. Maston.

"Not quite yet," replied the president.

"Why not?"

"Because we do not yet know of what metal it will be made."

"Let us decide that without delay."

"I was going to propose it to you."

The four members of the committee each swallowed a dozen sandwiches,

followed by a cup of tea, and the debate recommenced.

"Our cannon," said Barbicane, "must be possessed of great tenacity,

great hardness; it must be infusible by heat, indissoluble, and

inoxydable by the corrosive action of acids."

"There is no doubt about that," answered the major, "and as we shall

have to employ a considerable quantity of metal we shall not have much

choice."

"Well, then," said Morgan, "I propose for the fabrication of the

Columbiad the best alloy hitherto known--that is to say, 100 parts of

copper, 12 of tin, and 6 of brass."

"My friends," answered the president, "I agree that this composition has

given excellent results; but in bulk it would be too dear and very hard

to work. I therefore think we must adopt an excellent material, but

cheap, such as cast-iron. Is not that your opinion, major?"

"Quite," answered Elphinstone.

"In fact," resumed Barbicane, "cast-iron costs ten times less than

bronze; it is easily melted, it is readily run into sand moulds, and is

rapidly manipulated; it is, therefore, an economy of money and time.

Besides, that material is excellent, and I remember that during the war

at the siege of Atlanta cast-iron cannon fired a thousand shots each

every twenty minutes without being damaged by it."

"Yet cast-iron is very brittle," answered Morgan.

"Yes, but it possesses resistance too. Besides, we shall not let it

explode, I can answer for that."

"It is possible to explode and yet be honest," replied J.T. Maston

sententiously.

"Evidently," answered Barbicane. "I am, therefore, going to beg our

worthy secretary to calculate the weight of a cast-iron cannon 900 feet

long, with an inner diameter of nine feet, and sides six feet thick."

"At once," answered J.T. Maston, and, as he had done the day before, he

made his calculations with marvellous facility, and said at the end of a

minute--

"This cannon will weigh 68,040 tons."

"And how much will that cost at two cents a pound?"

"Two million five hundred and ten thousand seven hundred and one

dollars."

J.T. Maston, the major, and the general looked at Barbicane anxiously.

"Well, gentlemen," said the president, "I can only repeat what I said to

you yesterday, don't be uneasy; we shall not want for money."

Upon this assurance of its president the committee broke up, after

having fixed a third meeting for the next evening.

CHAPTER IX - THE QUESTION OF POWDERS.

The question of powder still remained to be settled. The public awaited

this last decision with anxiety. The size of the projectile and length

of the cannon being given, what would be the quantity of powder

necessary to produce the impulsion? This terrible agent, of which,

however, man has made himself master, was destined to play a part in

unusual proportions.

It is generally known and often asserted that gunpowder was invented in

the fourteenth century by the monk Schwartz, who paid for his great

discovery with his life. But it is nearly proved now that this story

must be ranked among the legends of the Middle Ages. Gunpowder was

invented by no one; it is a direct product of Greek fire, composed, like

it, of sulphur and saltpetre; only since that epoch these mixtures;

which were only dissolving, have been transformed into detonating

mixtures.

But if learned men know perfectly the false history of gunpowder, few

people are aware of its mechanical power. Now this is necessary to be

known in order to understand the importance of the question submitted to

the committee.

Thus a litre of gunpowder weighs about 2 lbs.; it produces, by burning,

about 400 litres of gas; this gas, liberated, and under the action of a

temperature of 2,400°, occupies the space of 4,000 litres. Therefore the

volume of powder is to the volume of gas produced by its deflagration as

1 to 400. The frightful force of this gas, when it is compressed into a

space 4,000 times too small, may be imagined.

This is what the members of the committee knew perfectly when, the next

day, they began their sitting. Major Elphinstone opened the debate.

"My dear comrades," said the distinguished chemist, "I am going to begin

with some unexceptionable figures, which will serve as a basis for our

calculation. The 24-lb. cannon-ball, of which the Hon. J.T. Maston spoke

the day before yesterday, is driven out of the cannon by 16 lbs. of

powder only."

"You are certain of your figures?" asked Barbicane.

"Absolutely certain," answered the major. "The Armstrong cannon only

uses 75 lbs. of powder for a projectile of 800 lbs., and the Rodman

Columbiad only expends 160 lbs. of powder to send its half-ton bullet

six miles. These facts cannot be doubted, for I found them myself in the

reports of the Committee of Artillery."

"That is certain," answered the general.

"Well," resumed the major, "the conclusion to be drawn from these

figures is that the quantity of powder does not augment with the weight

of the shot; in fact, if a shot of 24 lbs. took 16 lbs. of powder, and,

in other terms, if in ordinary cannons a quantity of powder weighing

two-thirds of the weight of the projectile is used, this proportion is

not always necessary. Calculate, and you will see that for the shot of

half a ton weight, instead of 333 lbs. of powder, this quantity has been

reduced to 116 lbs. only.

"What are you driving at?" asked the president.

"The extreme of your theory, my dear major," said J.T. Maston, "would

bring you to having no powder at all, provided your shot were

sufficiently heavy."

"Friend Maston will have his joke even in the most serious things,"

replied the major; "but he need not be uneasy; I shall soon propose a

quantity of powder that will satisfy him. Only I wish to have it

understood that during the war, and for the largest guns, the weight of

the powder was reduced, after experience, to a tenth of the weight of

the shot."

"Nothing is more exact," said Morgan; "but, before deciding the quantity

of powder necessary to give the impulsion, I think it would be well to

agree upon its nature."

"We shall use a large-grained powder," answered the major; "its

deflagration is the most rapid."

"No doubt," replied Morgan; "but it is very brittle, and ends by

damaging the chamber of the gun."

"Certainly; but what would be bad for a gun destined for long service

would not be so for our Columbiad. We run no danger of explosion, and

the powder must immediately take fire to make its mechanical effect

complete."

"We might make several touchholes," said J.T. Maston, "so as to set fire

to it in several places at the same time."

"No doubt," answered Elphinstone, "but that would make the working of it

more difficult. I therefore come back to my large-grained powder that

removes these difficulties."

"So be it," answered the general.

"To load his Columbiad," resumed the major, "Rodman used a powder in

grains as large as chestnuts, made of willow charcoal, simply rarefied

in cast-iron pans. This powder was hard and shining, left no stain on

the hands, contained a great proportion of hydrogen and oxygen,

deflagrated instantaneously, and, though very brittle, did not much

damage the mouthpiece."

"Well, it seems to me," answered J.T. Maston, "that we have nothing to

hesitate about, and that our choice is made."

"Unless you prefer gold-powder," replied the major, laughing, which

provoked a threatening gesture from the steel hook of his susceptible

friend.

Until then Barbicane had kept himself aloof from the discussion; he

listened, and had evidently an idea. He contented himself with saying

simply--

"Now, my friends, what quantity of powder do you propose?"

The three members of the Gun Club looked at one another for the space of

a minute.

"Two hundred thousand pounds," said Morgan at last.

"Five hundred thousand," replied the major.

"Eight hundred thousand," exclaimed J.T. Maston.

This, time Elphinstone dared not tax his colleague with exaggeration. In

fact, the question was that of sending to the moon a projectile weighing

20,000 lbs., and of giving it an initial force of 2000 yards a second. A

moment of silence, therefore, followed the triple proposition made by

the three colleagues.

It was at last broken by President Barbicane.

"My brave comrades," said he in a quiet tone, "I start from this

principle, that the resistance of our cannon, in the given conditions,

is unlimited. I shall, therefore, surprise the Honourable J.T. Maston

when I tell him that he has been timid in his calculations, and I

propose to double his 800,000 lbs. of powder."

"Sixteen hundred thousand pounds!" shouted J.T. Maston, jumping out of

his chair.

"Quite as much as that."

"Then we shall have to come back to my cannon half a mile long."

"It is evident," said the major.

"Sixteen hundred thousand pounds of powder," resumed the Secretary of

Committee, "will occupy about a space of 22,000 cubic feet; now, as your

cannon will only hold about 54,000 cubic feet, it will be half full, and

the chamber will not be long enough to allow the explosion of the gas to

give sufficient impulsion to your projectile."

There was nothing to answer. J.T. Maston spoke the truth. They all

looked at Barbicane.

"However," resumed the president, "I hold to that quantity of powder.

Think! 1,600,000 pounds of powder will give 6,000,000,000 litres of

gas."

"Then how is it to be done?" asked the general.

"It is very simple. We must reduce this enormous quantity of powder,

keeping at the same time its mechanical power."

"Good! By what means?"

"I will tell you," answered Barbicane simply.

His interlocutors all looked at him.

"Nothing is easier, in fact," he resumed, "than to bring that mass of

powder to a volume four times less. You all know that curious cellular

matter which constitutes the elementary tissues of vegetables?"

"Ah!" said the major, "I understand you, Barbicane."

"This matter," said the president, "is obtained in perfect purity in

different things, especially in cotton, which is nothing but the skin of

the seeds of the cotton plant. Now cotton, combined with cold nitric

acid, is transformed into a substance eminently insoluble, eminently

combustible, eminently explosive. Some years ago, in 1832, a French

chemist, Braconnot, discovered this substance, which he called

xyloidine. In 1838, another Frenchman, Pelouze, studied its different

properties; and lastly, in 1846, Schonbein, professor of chemistry at

Basle, proposed it as gunpowder. This powder is nitric cotton."

"Or pyroxyle," answered Elphinstone.

"Or fulminating cotton," replied Morgan.

"Is there not an American name to put at the bottom of this discovery?"

exclaimed J.T. Maston, animated by a lively sentiment of patriotism.

"Not one, unfortunately," replied the major.

"Nevertheless, to satisfy Maston," resumed the president, "I may tell

him that one of our fellow-citizens may be annexed to the study of the

celluosity, for collodion, which is one of the principal agents in

photography, is simply pyroxyle dissolved in ether to which alcohol has

been added, and it was discovered by Maynard, then a medical student."

"Hurrah for Maynard and fulminating cotton!" cried the noisy secretary

of the Gun Club.

"I return to pyroxyle," resumed Barbicane. "You are acquainted with its

properties which make it so precious to us. It is prepared with the

greatest facility; cotton plunged in smoking nitric acid for fifteen

minutes, then washed in water, then dried, and that is all."

"Nothing is more simple, certainty," said Morgan.

"What is more, pyroxyle is not damaged by moisture, a precious quality

in our eyes, as it will take several days to load the cannon. Its

inflammability takes place at 170° instead of at 240° and its

deflagration is so immediate that it may be fired on ordinary gunpowder

before the latter has time to catch fire too."

"Perfect," answered the major.

"Only it will cost more."

"What does that matter?" said J.T. Maston.

"Lastly, it communicates to projectiles a speed four times greater than

that of gunpowder. I may even add that if 8/10ths of its weight of

nitrate of potash is added its expansive force is still greatly

augmented."

"Will that be necessary?" asked the major.

"I do not think so," answered Barbicane. "Thus instead of 1,600,000 lbs.

of powder, we shall only have 400,000 lbs. of fulminating cotton, and as

we can, without danger, compress 500 lbs. of cotton into 27 cubic feet,

that quantity will not take up more than 180 feet in the chamber of the

Columbiad. By these means the projectile will have more than 700 feet of

chamber to traverse under a force of 6,000,000,000 of litres of gas

before taking its flight over the Queen of Night."

Here J.T. Maston could not contain his emotion. He threw himself into

the arms of his friend with the violence of a projectile, and he would

have been stove in had he not have been bombproof.

This incident ended the first sitting of the committee. Barbicane and

his enterprising colleagues, to whom nothing seemed impossible, had just

solved the complex question of the projectile, cannon, and powder. Their

plan being made, there was nothing left but to put it into execution

CHAPTER X - ONE ENEMY AGAINST TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.

The American public took great interest in the least details of the Gun

Club's enterprise. It followed the committee debates day by day. The

most simple preparations for this great experiment, the questions of

figures it provoked, the mechanical difficulties to be solved, all

excited popular opinion to the highest pitch.

More than a year would elapse between the commencement of the work and

its completion; but the interval would not be void of excitement. The

place to be chosen for the boring, the casting the metal of the

Columbiad, its perilous loading, all this was more than necessary to

excite public curiosity. The projectile, once fired, would be out of

sight in a few seconds; then what would become of it, how it would

behave in space, how it would reach the moon, none but a few privileged

persons would see with their own eyes. Thus, then, the preparations for

the experiment and the precise details of its execution constituted the

real source of interest.

In the meantime the purely scientific attraction of the enterprise was

all at once heightened by an incident.

It is known what numerous legions of admirers and friends the Barbicane

project had called round its author. But, notwithstanding the number and

importance of the majority, it was not destined to be unanimous. One

man, one out of all the United States, protested against the Gun Club.

He attacked it violently on every occasion, and--for human nature is

thus constituted--Barbicane was more sensitive to this one man's

opposition than to the applause of all the others.

Nevertheless he well knew the motive of this antipathy, from whence came

this solitary enmity, why it was personal and of ancient date; lastly,

in what rivalry it had taken root.

The president of the Gun Club had never seen this persevering enemy.

Happily, for the meeting of the two men would certainly have had

disastrous consequences. This rival was a savant like Barbicane, a

proud, enterprising, determined, and violent character, a pure Yankee.

His name was Captain Nicholl. He lived in Philadelphia.

No one is ignorant of the curious struggle which went on during the

Federal war between the projectile and ironclad vessels, the former

destined to pierce the latter, the latter determined not to be pierced.

Thence came a radical transformation in the navies of the two

continents. Cannon-balls and iron plates struggled for supremacy, the

former getting larger as the latter got thicker. Ships armed with

formidable guns went into the fire under shelter of their invulnerable

armour. The Merrimac, Monitor, ram Tennessee, and Wechhausen shot

enormous projectiles after having made themselves proof against the

projectiles of other ships. They did to others what they would not have

others do to them, an immoral principle upon which the whole art of war

is based.

Now Barbicane was a great caster of projectiles, and Nicholl was an

equally great forger of plate-armour. The one cast night and day at

Baltimore, the other forged day and night at Philadelphia. Each followed

an essentially different current of ideas.

As soon as Barbicane had invented a new projectile, Nicholl invented a

new plate armour. The president of the Gun Club passed his life in

piercing holes, the captain in preventing him doing it. Hence a constant

rivalry which even touched their persons. Nicholl appeared in

Barbicane's dreams as an impenetrable ironclad against which he split,

and Barbicane in Nicholl's dreams appeared like a projectile which

ripped him up.

Still, although they ran along two diverging lines, these savants

would have ended by meeting each other in spite of all the axioms in

geometry; but then it would have been on a duel field. Happily for these

worthy citizens, so useful to their country, a distance of from fifty to

sixty miles separated them, and their friends put such obstacles in the

way that they never met.

At present it was not clearly known which of the two inventors held the

palm. The results obtained rendered a just decision difficult. It

seemed, however, that in the end armour-plate would have to give way to

projectiles. Nevertheless, competent men had their doubts. At the latest

experiments the cylindro-conical shots of Barbicane had no more effect

than pins upon Nicholl's armour-plate. That day the forger of

Philadelphia believed himself victorious, and henceforth had nothing but

disdain for his rival. But when, later on, Barbicane substituted simple

howitzers of 600 lbs. for conical shots, the captain was obliged to go

down in his own estimation. It fact, these projectiles, though of

mediocre velocity, drilled with holes and broke to pieces armour-plate

of the best metal.

Things had reached this point and victory seemed to rest with the

projectile, when the war ended the very day that Nicholl terminated a

new forged armour-plate. It was a masterpiece of its kind. It defied all

the projectiles in the world. The captain had it taken to the Washington

Polygon and challenged the president of the Gun Club to pierce it.

Barbicane, peace having been made, would not attempt the experiment.

Then Nicholl, in a rage, offered to expose his armour-plate to the shock

of any kind of projectile, solid, hollow, round, or conical.

The president, who was determined not to compromise his last success,

refused.

Nicholl, excited by this unqualified obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicane

by leaving him every advantage. He proposed to put his plate 200 yards

from the gun. Barbicane still refused. At 100 yards? Not even at 75.

"At 50, then," cried the captain, through the newspapers, "at 25 yards

from my plate, and I will be behind it."

Barbicane answered that even if Captain Nicholl would be in front of it

he would not fire any more.

On this reply, Nicholl could no longer contain himself. He had recourse

to personalities; he insinuated cowardice--that the man who refuses to

fire a shot from a cannon is very nearly being afraid of it; that, in

short, the artillerymen who fight now at six miles distance have

prudently substituted mathematical formulae for individual courage, and

that there is as much bravery required to quietly wait for a cannon-ball

behind armour-plate as to send it according to all the rules of science.

To these insinuations Barbicane answered nothing. Perhaps he never knew

about them, for the calculations of his great enterprise absorbed him

entirely.

When he made his famous communication to the Gun Club, the anger of

Captain Nicholl reached its maximum. Mixed with it was supreme jealousy

and a sentiment of absolute powerlessness. How could he invent anything

better than a Columbiad 900 feet long? What armour-plate could ever

resist a projectile of 30,000 lbs.? Nicholl was at first crushed by this

cannon-ball, then he recovered and resolved to crush the proposition by

the weight of his best arguments.

He therefore violently attacked the labours of the Gun Club. He sent a

number of letters to the newspapers, which they did not refuse to

publish. He tried to demolish Barbicane's work scientifically. Once the

war begun, he called reasons of every kind to his aid, reasons it must

be acknowledged often specious and of bad metal.

Firstly, Barbicane was violently attacked about his figures. Nicholl

tried to prove by A + B the falseness of his formulae, and he accused

him of being ignorant of the rudimentary principles of ballistics.

Amongst other errors, and according to Nicholl's own calculations, it

was impossible to give any body a velocity of 12,000 yards a second. He

sustained, algebra in hand, that even with that velocity a projectile

thus heavy would never pass the limits of the terrestrial atmosphere. It

would not even go eight leagues! Better still. Granted the velocity, and

taking it as sufficient, the shot would not resist the pressure of the

gas developed by the combustion of 1,600,000 pounds of powder, and even

if it did resist that pressure, it at least would not support such a

temperature; it would melt as it issued from the Columbiad, and would

fall in red-hot rain on the heads of the imprudent spectators.

Barbicane paid no attention to these attacks, and went on with his work.

Then Nicholl considered the question in its other aspects. Without

speaking of its uselessness from all other points of view, he looked

upon the experiment as exceedingly dangerous, both for the citizens who

authorised so condemnable a spectacle by their presence, and for the

towns near the deplorable cannon. He also remarked that if the

projectile did not reach its destination, a result absolutely

impossible, it was evident that it would fall on to the earth again, and

that the fall of such a mass multiplied by the square of its velocity

would singularly damage some point on the globe. Therefore, in such a

circumstance, and without any restriction being put upon the rights of

free citizens, it was one of those cases in which the intervention of

government became necessary, and the safety of all must not be

endangered for the good pleasure of a single individual.

It will be seen to what exaggeration Captain Nicholl allowed himself to

be carried. He was alone in his opinion. Nobody took any notice of his

Cassandra prophecies. They let him exclaim as much as he liked, till his

throat was sore if he pleased. He had constituted himself the defender

of a cause lost in advance. He was heard but not listened to, and he did

not carry off a single admirer from the president of the Gun Club, who

did not even take the trouble to refute his rival's arguments.

Nicholl, driven into his last intrenchments, and not being able to fight

for his opinion, resolved to pay for it. He therefore proposed in the

Richmond Inquirer a series of bets conceived in these terms and in an

increasing proportion.

He bet that--

1. The funds necessary for the Gun Club's enterprise would not be

forthcoming, 1,000 dols.

2. That the casting of a cannon of 900 feet was impracticable and would

not succeed, 2,000 dols.

3. That it would be impossible to load the Columbiad, and that the

pyroxyle would ignite spontaneously under the weight of the projectile,

3,000 dols.

4. That the Columbiad would burst at the first discharge, 4,000 dols.

5. That the projectile would not even go six miles, and would fall a few

seconds after its discharge, 5,000 dols.

It will be seen that the captain was risking an important sum in his

invincible obstinacy. No less than 15,000 dols. were at stake.

Notwithstanding the importance of the wager, he received on the 19th of

October a sealed packet of superb laconism, couched in these terms:--

"Baltimore, October 18th.

"Done.

"BARBICANE."

CHAPTER XI - FLORIDA AND TEXAS.

There still remained one question to be decided--a place favourable to

the experiment had to be chosen. According to the recommendation of the

Cambridge Observatory the gun must be aimed perpendicularly to the plane

of the horizon--that is to say, towards the zenith. Now the moon only

appears in the zenith in the places situated between 0° and 28° of

latitude, or, in other terms, when her declination is only 28°. The

question was, therefore, to determine the exact point of the globe where

the immense Columbiad should be cast.

On the 20th of October the Gun Club held a general meeting. Barbicane

brought a magnificent map of the United States by Z. Belltropp. But

before he had time to unfold it J.T. Maston rose with his habitual

vehemence, and began to speak as follows:--

"Honourable colleagues, the question we are to settle to-day is really

of national importance, and will furnish us with an occasion for doing a

great act of patriotism."

The members of the Gun Club looked at each other without understanding

what the orator was coming to.

"Not one of you," he continued, "would think of doing anything to

lessen the glory of his country, and if there is one right that the

Union may claim it is that of harbouring in its bosom the formidable

cannon of the Gun Club. Now, under the present circumstances--"

"Will you allow me--" said Barbicane.

"I demand the free discussion of ideas," replied the impetuous J.T.

Maston, "and I maintain that the territory from which our glorious

projectile will rise ought to belong to the Union."

"Certainly," answered several members.

"Well, then, as our frontiers do not stretch far enough, as on the south

the ocean is our limit, as we must seek beyond the United States and in

a neighbouring country this 28th parallel, this is all a legitimate

casus belli, and I demand that war should be declared against Mexico!"

"No, no!" was cried from all parts.

"No!" replied J.T. Maston. "I am much astonished at hearing such a word

in these precincts!"

"But listen--"

"Never! never!" cried the fiery orator. "Sooner or later this war will

be declared, and I demand that it should be this very day."

"Maston," said Barbicane, making his bell go off with a crash, "I agree

with you that the experiment cannot and ought not to be made anywhere

but on the soil of the Union, but if I had been allowed to speak before,

and you had glanced at this map, you would know that it is perfectly

useless to declare war against our neighbours, for certain frontiers of

the United States extend beyond the 28th parallel. Look, we have at our

disposition all the southern part of Texas and Florida."

This incident had no consequences; still it was not without regret that

J.T. Maston allowed himself to be convinced. It was, therefore, decided

that the Columbiad should be cast either on the soil of Texas or on that

of Florida. But this decision was destined to create an unexampled

rivalry between the towns of these two states.

The 28th parallel, when it touches the American coast, crosses the

peninsula of Florida, and divides it into two nearly equal portions.

Then, plunging into the Gulf of Mexico, it subtends the arc formed by

the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; then skirting Texas,

off which it cuts an angle, it continues its direction over Mexico,

crosses the Sonora and Old California, and loses itself in the Pacific

Ocean; therefore only the portions of Texas and Florida situated below

this parallel fulfilled the requisite conditions of latitude recommended

by the Observatory of Cambridge.

The southern portion of Florida contains no important cities. It only

bristles with forts raised against wandering Indians. One town only,

Tampa Town, could put in a claim in favour of its position.

In Texas, on the contrary, towns are more numerous and more important.

Corpus Christi in the county of Nuaces, and all the cities situated on

the Rio Bravo, Laredo, Comalites, San Ignacio in Web, Rio Grande city in

Starr, Edinburgh in Hidalgo, Santa-Rita, El Panda, and Brownsville in

Cameron, formed a powerful league against the pretensions of Florida.

The decision, therefore, was hardly made public before the Floridan and

Texican deputies flocked to Baltimore by the shortest way. From that

moment President Barbicane and the influential members of the Gun Club

were besieged day and night by formidable claims. If seven towns of

Greece contended for the honour of being Homer's birthplace, two entire

states threatened to fight over a cannon.

These rival parties were then seen marching with weapons about the

streets of the town. Every time they met a fight was imminent, which

would have had disastrous consequences. Happily the prudence and skill

of President Barbicane warded off this danger. Personal demonstrations

found an outlet in the newspapers of the different states. It was thus

that the New York Herald and the Tribune supported the claims of

Texas, whilst the Times and the American Review took the part of the

Floridan deputies. The members of the Gun Club did not know which to

listen to.

Texas came up proudly with its twenty-six counties, which it seemed to

put in array; but Florida answered that twelve counties proved more than

twenty-six in a country six times smaller.

Texas bragged of its 33,000 inhabitants; but Florida, much smaller,

boasted of being much more densely populated with 56,000. Besides,

Florida accused Texas of being the home of paludian fevers, which

carried off, one year with another, several thousands of inhabitants,

and Florida was not far wrong.

In its turn Texas replied that Florida need not envy its fevers, and

that it was, at least, imprudent to call other countries unhealthy when

Florida itself had chronic "vomito negro," and Texas was not far wrong.

"Besides," added the Texicans through the New York Herald, "there are

rights due to a state that grows the best cotton in all America, a state

which produces holm oak for building ships, a state that contains superb

coal and mines of iron that yield fifty per cent. of pure ore."

To that the American Review answered that the soil of Florida, though

not so rich, offered better conditions for the casting of the Columbiad,

as it was composed of sand and clay-ground.

"But," answered the Texicans, "before anything can be cast in a place,

it must get to that place; now communication with Florida is difficult,

whilst the coast of Texas offers Galveston Bay, which is fourteen

leagues round, and could contain all the fleets in the world."

"Why," replied the newspapers devoted to Florida, "your Galveston Bay is

situated above the 29th parallel, whilst our bay of Espiritu-Santo opens

precisely at the 28th degree of latitude, and by it ships go direct to

Tampa Town."

"A nice bay truly!" answered Texas; "it is half-choked up with sand."

"Any one would think, to hear you talk," cried Florida, "that I was a

savage country."

"Well, the Seminoles do still wander over your prairies!"

"And what about your Apaches and your Comanches--are they civilised?"

The war had been thus kept up for some days when Florida tried to draw

her adversary upon another ground, and one morning the Times

insinuated that the enterprise being "essentially American," it ought

only to be attempted upon an "essentially American" territory.

At these words Texas could not contain itself.

"American!" it cried, "are we not as American as you? Were not Texas and

Florida both incorporated in the Union in 1845?"

"Certainly," answered the Times, "but we have belonged to America

since 1820."

"Yes," replied the Tribune, "after having been Spanish or English for

200 years, you were sold to the United States for 5,000,000 of dollars!"

"What does that matter?" answered Florida. "Need we blush for that? Was

not Louisiana bought in 1803 from Napoleon for 16,000,000 of dollars?"

"It is shameful!" then cried the Texican deputies. "A miserable slice of

land like Florida to dare to compare itself with Texas, which, instead

of being sold, made itself independent, which drove out the Mexicans on

the 2nd of March, 1836, which declared itself Federative Republican

after the victory gained by Samuel Houston on the banks of the San

Jacinto over the troops of Santa-Anna--a country, in short, which

voluntarily joined itself to the United States of America!"

"Because it was afraid of the Mexicans!" answered Florida.

"Afraid!" From the day this word, really too cutting, was pronounced,

the situation became intolerable. An engagement was expected between the

two parties in the streets of Baltimore. The deputies were obliged to be

watched.

President Barbicane was half driven wild. Notes, documents, and letters

full of threats inundated his house. Which course ought he to decide

upon? In the point of view of fitness of soil, facility of

communications, and rapidity of transport, the rights of the two states

were really equal. As to the political personalities, they had nothing

to do with the question.

Now this hesitation and embarrassment had already lasted some time when

Barbicane resolved to put an end to it; he called his colleagues

together, and the solution he proposed to them was a profoundly wise

one, as will be seen from the following:--

"After due consideration," said he, "of all that has just occurred

between Florida and Texas, it is evident that the same difficulties will

again crop up between the towns of the favoured state. The rivalry will

be changed from state to city, and that is all. Now Texas contains

eleven towns with the requisite conditions that will dispute the honour

of the enterprise, and that will create fresh troubles for us, whilst

Florida has but one; therefore I decide for Tampa Town!"

The Texican deputies were thunderstruck at this decision. It put them

into a terrible rage, and they sent nominal provocations to different

members of the Gun Club. There was only one course for the magistrates

of Baltimore to take, and they took it. They had the steam of a special

train got up, packed the Texicans into it, whether they would or no, and

sent them away from the town at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

But they were not carried off too quickly to hurl a last and threatening

sarcasm at their adversaries.

Making allusion to the width of Florida, a simple peninsula between two

seas, they pretended it would not resist the shock, and would be blown

up the first time the cannon was fired.

"Very well! let it be blown up!" answered the Floridans with a laconism

worthy of ancient times.

CHAPTER XII - "URBI ET ORBI."

The astronomical, mechanical, and topographical difficulties once

removed, there remained the question of money. An enormous sum was

necessary for the execution of the project. No private individual, no

single state even, could have disposed of the necessary millions.

President Barbicane had resolved--although the enterprise was

American--to make it a business of universal interest, and to ask every

nation for its financial co-operation. It was the bounded right and duty

of all the earth to interfere in the business of the satellite. The

subscription opened at Baltimore, for this end extended thence to all

the world--urbi et orbi.

This subscription was destined to succeed beyond all hope; yet the money

was to be given, not lent. The operation was purely disinterested, in

the literal meaning of the word, and offered no chance of gain.

But the effect of Barbicane's communication had not stopped at the

frontiers of the United States; it had crossed the Atlantic and Pacific,

had invaded both Asia and Europe, both Africa and Oceania. The

observatories of the Union were immediately put into communication with

the observatories of foreign countries; some--those of Paris, St.

Petersburg, the Cape, Berlin, Altona, Stockholm, Warsaw, Hamburg, Buda,

Bologna, Malta, Lisbon, Benares, Madras, and Pekin--sent their

compliments to the Gun Club; the others prudently awaited the result.

As to the Greenwich Observatory, seconded by the twenty-two astronomical

establishments of Great Britain, it made short work of it; it boldly

denied the possibility of success, and took up Captain Nicholl's

theories. Whilst the different scientific societies promised to send

deputies to Tampa Town, the Greenwich staff met and contemptuously

dismissed the Barbicane proposition. This was pure English jealousy and

nothing else.

Generally speaking, the effect upon the world of science was excellent,

and from thence it passed to the masses, who, in general, were greatly

interested in the question, a fact of great importance, seeing those

masses were to be called upon to subscribe a considerable capital.

On the 8th of October President Barbicane issued a manifesto, full of

enthusiasm, in which he made appeal to "all persons on the face of the

earth willing to help." This document, translated into every language,

had great success.

Subscriptions were opened in the principal towns of the Union with a

central office at the Baltimore Bank, 9, Baltimore street; then

subscriptions were opened in the different countries of the two

continents:--At Vienna, by S.M. de Rothschild; St. Petersburg, Stieglitz

and Co.; Paris, Crédit Mobilier; Stockholm, Tottie and Arfuredson;

London, N.M. de Rothschild and Son; Turin, Ardouin and Co.; Berlin,

Mendelssohn; Geneva, Lombard, Odier, and Co.; Constantinople, Ottoman

Bank; Brussels, J. Lambert; Madrid, Daniel Weisweller; Amsterdam,

Netherlands Credit Co.; Rome, Torlonia and Co.; Lisbon, Lecesne;

Copenhagen, Private Bank; Buenos Ayres, Mana Bank; Rio Janeiro, Mana

Bank; Monte Video, Mana Bank; Valparaiso, Thomas La Chambre and Co.;

Lima, Thomas La Chambre and Co.; Mexico, Martin Daran and Co.

Three days after President Barbicane's manifesto 400,000 dollars were

received in the different towns of the Union. With such a sum in hand

the Gun Club could begin at once.

But a few days later telegrams informed America that foreign

subscriptions were pouring in rapidly. Certain countries were

distinguished by their generosity; others let go their money less

easily. It was a matter of temperament.

However, figures are more eloquent than words, and the following is an

official statement of the sums paid to the credit of the Gun Club when

the subscription was closed:--

The contingent of Russia was the enormous sum of 368,733 roubles. This

need astonish no one who remembers the scientific taste of the Russians

and the impetus which they have given to astronomical studies, thanks to

their numerous observatories, the principal of which cost 2,000,000

roubles.

France began by laughing at the pretensions of the Americans. The moon

served as an excuse for a thousand stale puns and a score of vaudevilles

in which bad taste contested the palm with ignorance. But, as the French

formerly paid after singing, they now paid after laughing, and

subscribed a sum of 1,258,930 francs. At that price they bought the

right to joke a little.

Austria, in the midst of her financial difficulties, was sufficiently

generous. Her part in the public subscription amounted to 216,000

florins, which were welcome.

Sweden and Norway contributed 52,000 rix-dollars. The figure was small

considering the country; but it would certainly have been higher if a

subscription had been opened at Christiania as well as at Stockholm. For

some reason or other the Norwegians do not like to send their money to

Norway.

Prussia, by sending 250,000 thalers, testified her approbation of the

enterprise. Her different observatories contributed an important sum,

and were amongst the most ardent in encouraging President Barbicane.

Turkey behaved generously, but she was personally interested in the

business; the moon, in fact, rules the course of her years and her

Ramadan fast. She could do no less than give 1,372,640 piastres, and she

gave them with an ardour that betrayed, however, a certain pressure from

the Government of the Porte.

Belgium distinguished herself amongst all the second order of States by

a gift of 513,000 francs, about one penny and a fraction for each

inhabitant.

Holland and her colonies contributed 110,000 florins, only demanding a

discount of five per cent., as she paid ready money.

Denmark, rather confined for room, gave, notwithstanding, 9,000 ducats,

proving her love for scientific experiments.

The Germanic Confederation subscribed 34,285 florins; more could not be

asked from her; besides, she would not have given more.

Although in embarrassed circumstances, Italy found 2,000,000 francs in

her children's pockets, but by turning them well inside out. If she had

then possessed Venetia she would have given more, but she did not yet

possess Venetia.

The Pontifical States thought they could not send less than 7,040 Roman

crowns, and Portugal pushed her devotion to the extent of 3,000

cruzades.

Mexico gent the widow's mite, 86 piastres; but empires in course of

formation are always in rather embarrassed circumstances.

Switzerland sent the modest sum of 257 francs to the American scheme. It

must be frankly stated that Switzerland only looked upon the practical

side of the operation; the action of sending a bullet to the moon did

not seem of a nature sufficient for the establishing of any

communication with the Queen of Night, so Switzerland thought it

imprudent to engage capital in an enterprise depending upon such

uncertain events. After all, Switzerland was, perhaps, right.

As to Spain, she found it impossible to get together more than 110

reals. She gave as an excuse that she had her railways to finish. The

truth is that science is not looked upon very favourably in that

country; it is still a little behindhand. And then certain Spaniards,

and not the most ignorant either, had no clear conception of the size of

the projectile compared with that of the moon; they feared it might

disturb the satellite from her orbit, and make her fall on to the

surface of the terrestrial globe. In that case it was better to have

nothing to do with it, which they carried out, with that small

exception.

England alone remained. The contemptuous antipathy with which she

received Barbicane's proposition is known. The English have but a single

mind in their 25,000,000 of bodies which Great Britain contains. They

gave it to be understood that the enterprise of the Gun Club was

contrary "to the principle of non-intervention," and they did not

subscribe a single farthing.

At this news the Gun Club contented itself with shrugging its shoulders,

and returned to its great work. When South America--that is to say,

Peru, Chili, Brazil, the provinces of La Plata and Columbia--had poured

into their hands their quota of 300,000 dollars, it found itself

possessed of a considerable capital of which the following is a

statement:--

United States subscription, 4,000,000 dollars; foreign subscriptions,

1,446,675 dollars; total, 5,446,675 dollars.

This was the large sum poured by the public into the coffers of the Gun

Club.

No one need be surprised at its importance. The work of casting, boring,

masonry, transport of workmen, and their installation in an almost

uninhabited country, the construction of furnaces and workshops, the

manufacturing tools, powder, projectile and incidental expenses would,

according to the estimates, absorb nearly the whole. Some of the

cannon-shots fired during the war cost 1,000 dollars each; that of

President Barbicane, unique in the annals of artillery, might well cost

5,000 times more.

On the 20th of October a contract was made with the Goldspring

Manufactory, New York, which during the war had furnished Parrott with

his best cast-iron guns.

It was stipulated between the contracting parties that the Goldspring

Manufactory should pledge itself to send to Tampa Town, in South

Florida, the necessary materials for the casting of the Columbiad.

This operation was to be terminated, at the latest, on the 15th of the

next October, and the cannon delivered in good condition, under penalty

of 100 dollars a day forfeit until the moon should again present herself

under the same conditions--that is to say, during eighteen years and

eleven days.

The engagement of the workmen, their pay, and the necessary transports

all to be made by the Goldspring Company.

This contract, made in duplicate, was signed by I. Barbicane, president

of the Gun Club, and J. Murphison, Manager of the Goldspring

Manufactory, who thus signed on the part of the contracting parties.

CHAPTER XIII - STONY HILL.

Since the choice made by the members of the Gun Club to the detriment of

Texas, every one in America--where every one knows how to read--made it

his business to study the geography of Florida. Never before had the

booksellers sold so many Bertram's Travels in Florida, Roman's

Natural History of East and West Florida, Williams' Territory of

Florida, and Cleland on the Culture of the Sugar Cane in East

Florida. New editions of these works were required. There was quite a

rage for them.

Barbicane had something better to do than to read; he wished to see with

his own eyes and choose the site of the Columbiad. Therefore, without

losing a moment, he put the funds necessary for the construction of a

telescope at the disposition of the Cambridge Observatory, and made a

contract with the firm of Breadwill and Co., of Albany, for the making

of the aluminium projectile; then he left Baltimore accompanied by J.T.

Maston, Major Elphinstone, and the manager of the Goldspring

Manufactory.

The next day the four travelling companions reached New Orleans. There

they embarked on board the Tampico, a despatch-boat belonging to the

Federal Navy, which the Government had placed at their disposal, and,

with all steam on, they quickly lost sight of the shores of Louisiana.

The passage was not a long one; two days after its departure the

Tampico, having made four hundred and eighty miles, sighted the

Floridian coast. As it approached, Barbicane saw a low, flat coast,

looking rather unfertile. After coasting a series of creeks rich in

oysters and lobsters, the Tampico entered the Bay of Espiritu-Santo.

This bay is divided into two long roadsteads, those of Tampa and

Hillisboro, the narrow entrance to which the steamer soon cleared. A

short time afterwards the batteries of Fort Brooke rose above the waves

and the town of Tampa appeared, carelessly lying on a little natural

harbour formed by the mouth of the river Hillisboro.

There the Tampico anchored on October 22nd, at seven p.m.; the four

passengers landed immediately.

Barbicane felt his heart beat violently as he set foot on Floridian

soil; he seemed to feel it with his feet like an architect trying the

solidity of a house. J.T. Maston scratched the ground with his steel

hook.

"Gentlemen," then said Barbicane, "we have no time to lose, and we will

set off on horseback to-morrow to survey the country."

The minute Barbicane landed the three thousand inhabitants of Tampa Town

went out to meet him, an honour quite due to the president of the Gun

Club, who had decided in their favour. They received him with formidable

exclamations, but Barbicane escaped an ovation by shutting himself up in

his room at the Franklin Hotel and refusing to see any one.

The next day, October 23rd, small horses of Spanish race, full of fire

and vigour, pawed the ground under his windows. But, instead of four,

there were fifty, with their riders. Barbicane went down accompanied by

his three companions, who were at first astonished to find themselves in

the midst of such a cavalcade. He remarked besides that each horseman

carried a carbine slung across his shoulders and pistols in his

holsters. The reason for such a display of force was immediately given

him by a young Floridian, who said to him--

"Sir, the Seminoles are there."

"What Seminoles?"

"Savages who frequent the prairies, and we deemed it prudent to give you

an escort."

"Pooh!" exclaimed J.T. Maston as he mounted his steed.

"It is well to be on the safe side," answered the Floridian.

"Gentlemen," replied Barbicane, "I thank you for your attention, and now

let us be off."

The little troop set out immediately, and disappeared in a cloud of

dust. It was five a.m.; the sun shone brilliantly already, and the

thermometer indicated 84°, but fresh sea breezes moderated this

excessive heat.

Barbicane, on leaving Tampa Town, went down south and followed the coast

to Alifia Creek. This small river falls into Hillisboro Bay, twelve

miles below Tampa Town. Barbicane and his escort followed its right bank

going up towards the east. The waves of the bay disappeared behind an

inequality in the ground, and the Floridian country was alone in sight.

Florida is divided into two parts; the one to the north, more populous

and less abandoned, has Tallahassee for capital, and Pensacola, one of

the principal marine arsenals of the United States; the other, lying

between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, is only a narrow peninsula,

eaten away by the current of the Gulf Stream--a little tongue of land

lost amidst a small archipelago, which the numerous vessels of the

Bahama Channel double continually. It is the advanced sentinel of the

gulf of great tempests. The superficial area of this state measures

38,033,267 acres, amongst which one had to be chosen situated beyond the

28th parallel and suitable for the enterprise. As Barbicane rode along

he attentively examined the configuration of the ground and its

particular distribution.

Florida, discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon in 1512, on Palm Sunday, was

first of all named Pascha Florida. It was well worthy of that

designation with its dry and arid coasts. But a few miles from the shore

the nature of the ground gradually changed, and the country showed

itself worthy of its name; the soil was cut up by a network of creeks,

rivers, watercourses, ponds, and small lakes; it might have been

mistaken for Holland or Guiana; but the ground gradually rose and soon

showed its cultivated plains, where all the vegetables of the North and

South grow in perfection, its immense fields, where a tropical sun and

the water conserved in its clayey texture do all the work of

cultivating, and lastly its prairies of pineapples, yams, tobacco, rice,

cotton, and sugarcanes, which extended as far as the eye could reach,

spreading out their riches with careless prodigality.

Barbicane appeared greatly satisfied on finding the progressive

elevation of the ground, and when J.T. Maston questioned him on the

subject,

"My worthy friend," said he, "it is greatly to our interest to cast our

Columbiad on elevated ground."

"In order to be nearer the moon?" exclaimed the secretary of the Gun

Club.

"No," answered Barbicane, smiling. "What can a few yards more or less

matter? No, but on elevated ground our work can be accomplished more

easily; we shall not have to struggle against water, which will save us

long and expensive tubings, and that has to be taken into consideration

when a well 900 feet deep has to be sunk."

"You are right," said Murchison, the engineer; "we must, as much as

possible, avoid watercourses during the casting; but if we meet with

springs they will not matter much; we can exhaust them with our machines

or divert them from their course. Here we have not to work at an

artesian well, narrow and dark, where all the boring implements have to

work in the dark. No; we can work under the open sky, with spade and

pickaxe, and, by the help of blasting, our work will not take long."

"Still," resumed Barbicane, "if by the elevation of the ground or its

nature we can avoid a struggle with subterranean waters, we can do our

work more rapidly and perfectly; we must, therefore, make our cutting in

ground situated some thousands of feet above the level of the sea."

"You are right, Mr. Barbicane, and, if I am not mistaken, we shall soon

find a suitable spot."

"I should like to see the first spadeful turned up," said the president.

"And I the last!" exclaimed J.T. Maston.

"We shall manage it, gentlemen," answered the engineer; "and, believe

me, the Goldspring Company will not have to pay you any forfeit for

delay."

"Faith! it had better not," replied J.T. Maston; "a hundred dollars a

day till the moon presents herself in the same conditions--that is to

say, for eighteen years and eleven days--do you know that would make

658,000 dollars?"

"No, sir, we do not know, and we shall not need to learn."

About ten a.m. the little troop had journeyed about twelve miles; to the

fertile country succeeded a forest region. There were the most varied

perfumes in tropical profusion. The almost impenetrable forests were

made up of pomegranates, orange, citron, fig, olive, and apricot trees,

bananas, huge vines, the blossoms and fruit of which rivalled each other

in colour and perfume. Under the perfumed shade of these magnificent

trees sang and fluttered a world of brilliantly-coloured birds, amongst

which the crab-eater deserved a jewel casket, worthy of its feathered

gems, for a nest.

J.T. Maston and the major could not pass through such opulent nature

without admiring its splendid beauty.

But President Barbicane, who thought little of these marvels, was in a

hurry to hasten onwards; this country, so fertile, displeased him by its

very fertility; without being otherwise hydropical, he felt water under

his feet, and sought in vain the signs of incontestable aridity.

In the meantime they journeyed on. They were obliged to ford several

rivers, and not without danger, for they were infested with alligators

from fifteen to eighteen feet long. J.T. Maston threatened them boldly

with his formidable hook, but he only succeeded in frightening the

pelicans, phaetons, and teals that frequented the banks, while the red

flamingoes looked on with a stupid stare.

At last these inhabitants of humid countries disappeared in their turn.

The trees became smaller and more thinly scattered in smaller woods;

some isolated groups stood amidst immense plains where ranged herds of

startled deer.

"At last!" exclaimed Barbicane, rising in his stirrups. "Here is the

region of pines."

"And savages," answered the major.

In fact, a few Seminoles appeared on the horizon. They moved about

backwards and forwards on their fleet horses, brandishing long lances or

firing their guns with a dull report. However, they confined themselves

to these hostile demonstrations, which had no effect on Barbicane and

his companions.

They were then in the middle of a rocky plain, a vast open space of

several acres in extent which the sun covered with burning rays. It was

formed by a wide elevation of the soil, and seemed to offer to the

members of the Gun Club all the required conditions for the construction

of their Columbiad.

"Halt!" cried Barbicane, stopping. "Has this place any name?"

"It is called Stony Hill," answered the Floridians.

Barbicane, without saying a word, dismounted, took his instruments, and

began to fix his position with extreme precision. The little troop drawn

up around him watched him in profound silence.

At that moment the sun passed the meridian. Barbicane, after an

interval, rapidly noted the result of his observation, and said--

"This place is situated 1,800 feet above the sea level in lat. 27° 7'

and West long. 5° 7' by the Washington meridian. It appears to me by its

barren and rocky nature to offer every condition favourable to our

enterprise; we will therefore raise our magazines, workshops, furnaces,

and workmen's huts here, and it is from this very spot," said he,

stamping upon it with his foot, "the summit of Stony Hill, that our

projectile will start for the regions of the solar world!"

CHAPTER XIV - PICKAXE AND TROWEL.

That same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to Tampa Town,

and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board the Tampico for New

Orleans. He was to engage an army of workmen to bring back the greater

part of the working-stock. The members of the Gun Club remained at Tampa

Town in order to set on foot the preliminary work with the assistance of

the inhabitants of the country.

Eight days after its departure the Tampico returned to the

Espiritu-Santo Bay with a fleet of steamboats. Murchison had succeeded

in getting together 1,500 workmen. In the evil days of slavery he would

have lost his time and trouble; but since America, the land of liberty,

has only contained freemen, they flock wherever they can get good pay.

Now money was not wanting to the Gun Club; it offered a high rate of

wages with considerable and proportionate perquisites. The workman

enlisted for Florida could, once the work finished, depend upon a

capital placed in his name in the bank of Baltimore.

Murchison had therefore only to pick and choose, and could be severe

about the intelligence and skill of his workmen. He enrolled in his

working legion the pick of mechanics, stokers, iron-founders,

lime-burners, miners, brickmakers, and artisans of every sort, white or

black without distinction of colour. Many of them brought their families

with them. It was quite an emigration.

On the 31st of October, at 10 a.m., this troop landed on the quays of

Tampa Town. The movement and activity which reigned in the little town

that had thus doubled its population in a single day may be imagined. In

fact, Tampa Town was enormously benefited by this enterprise of the Gun

Club, not by the number of workmen who were immediately drafted to Stony

Hill, but by the influx of curious idlers who converged by degrees from

all points of the globe towards the Floridian peninsula.

During the first few days they were occupied in unloading the flotilla

of the tools, machines, provisions, and a large number of plate iron

houses made in pieces separately pieced and numbered. At the same time

Barbicane laid the first sleepers of a railway fifteen miles long that

was destined to unite Stony Hill and Tampa Town.

It is known how American railways are constructed, with capricious

bends, bold slopes, steep hills, and deep valleys. They do not cost much

and are not much in their way, only their trains run off or jump off as

they please. The railway from Tampa Town to Stony Hill was but a trifle,

and wanted neither much time nor much money for its construction.

Barbicane was the soul of this army of workmen who had come at his call.

He animated them, communicated to them his ardour, enthusiasm, and

conviction. He was everywhere at once, as if endowed with the gift of

ubiquity, and always followed by J.T. Maston, his bluebottle fly. His

practical mind invented a thousand things. With him there were no

obstacles, difficulties, or embarrassment. He was as good a miner,

mason, and mechanic as he was an artilleryman, having an answer to every

question, and a solution to every problem. He corresponded actively with

the Gun Club and the Goldspring Manufactory, and day and night the

Tampico kept her steam up awaiting his orders in Hillisboro harbour.

Barbicane, on the 1st of November, left Tampa Town with a detachment of

workmen, and the very next day a small town of workmen's houses rose

round Stony Hill. They surrounded it with palisades, and from its

movement and ardour it might soon have been taken for one of the great

cities of the Union. Life was regulated at once and work began in

perfect order.

Careful boring had established the nature of the ground, and digging was

begun on November 4th. That day Barbicane called his foremen together

and said to them--

"You all know, my friends, why I have called you together in this part

of Florida. We want to cast a cannon nine feet in diameter, six feet

thick, and with a stone revetment nineteen and a half feet thick; we

therefore want a well 60 feet wide and 900 feet deep. This large work

must be terminated in nine months. You have, therefore, 2,543,400 cubic

feet of soil to dig out in 255 days--that is to say, 10,000 cubic feet a

day. That would offer no difficulty if you had plenty of elbow-room, but

as you will only have a limited space it will be more trouble.

Nevertheless as the work must be done it will be done, and I depend upon

your courage as much as upon your skill."

At 8 a.m. the first spadeful was dug out of the Floridian soil, and from

that moment this useful tool did not stop idle a moment in the hands of

the miner. The gangs relieved each other every three hours.

Besides, although the work was colossal it did not exceed the limit of

human capability. Far from that. How many works of much greater

difficulty, and in which the elements had to be more directly contended

against, had been brought to a successful termination! Suffice it to

mention the well of Father Joseph, made near Cairo by the Sultan Saladin

at an epoch when machines had not yet appeared to increase the strength

of man a hundredfold, and which goes down to the level of the Nile

itself at a depth of 300 feet! And that other well dug at Coblentz by

the Margrave Jean of Baden, 600 feet deep! All that was needed was a

triple depth and a double width, which made the boring easier. There was

not one foreman or workman who doubted about the success of the

operation.

An important decision taken by Murchison and approved of by Barbicane

accelerated the work. An article in the contract decided that the

Columbiad should be hooped with wrought-iron--a useless precaution, for

the cannon could evidently do without hoops. This clause was therefore

given up. Hence a great economy of time, for they could then employ the

new system of boring now used for digging wells, by which the masonry is

done at the same time as the boring. Thanks to this very simple

operation they were not obliged to prop up the ground; the wall kept it

up and went down by its own weight.

This manoeuvre was only to begin when the spade should have reached the

solid part of the ground.

On the 4th of November fifty workmen began to dig in the very centre of

the inclosure surrounded by palisades--that is to say, the top of Stony

Hill--a circular hole sixty feet wide.

The spade first turned up a sort of black soil six inches deep, which it

soon carried away. To this soil succeeded two feet of fine sand, which

was carefully taken out, as it was to be used for the casting.

After this sand white clay appeared, similar to English chalk, and which

was four feet thick.

Then the pickaxes rang upon the hard layer, a species of rock formed by

very dry petrified shells. At that point the hole was six and a half

feet deep, and the masonry was begun.

At the bottom of that excavation they made an oak wheel, a sort of

circle strongly bolted and of enormous strength; in its centre a hole

was pierced the size of the exterior diameter of the Columbiad. It was

upon this wheel that the foundations of the masonry were placed, the

hydraulic cement of which joined the stones solidly together. After the

workmen had bricked up the space from the circumference to the centre,

they found themselves inclosed in a well twenty-one feet wide.

When this work was ended the miners began again with spade and pickaxe,

and set upon the rock under the wheel itself, taking care to support it

on extremely strong tressels; every time the hole was two feet deeper

they took away the tressels; the wheel gradually sank, taking with it

its circle of masonry, at the upper layer of which the masons worked

incessantly, taking care to make vent-holes for the escape of gas during

the operation of casting.

This kind of work required great skill and constant attention on the

part of the workmen; more than one digging under the wheel was

dangerous, and some were even mortally wounded by the splinters of

stone; but their energy did not slacken for a moment by day nor night;

by day, when the sun's rays sent the thermometer up to 99° on the

calcined planes; by night, under the white waves of electric light, the

noise of the pickaxe on the rock, the blasting and the machines,

together with the wreaths of smoke scattered through the air, traced a

circle of terror round Stony Hill, which the herds of buffaloes and the

detachments of Seminoles never dared to pass.

In the meantime the work regularly advanced; steam-cranes speeded the

carrying away of the rubbish; of unexpected obstacles there were none;

all the difficulties had been foreseen and guarded against.

When the first month had gone by the well had attained the depth

assigned for the time--i.e., 112 feet. In December this depth was

doubled, and tripled in January. During February the workmen had to

contend against a sheet of water which sprang from the ground. They were

obliged to employ powerful pumps and apparatus of compressed air to

drain it off, so as to close up the orifice from which it issued, just

as leaks are caulked on board ship. At last they got the better of these

unwelcome springs, only in consequence of the loosening of the soil the

wheel partially gave way, and there was a landslip. The frightful force

of this bricked circle, more than 400 feet high, may be imagined! This

accident cost the life of several workmen. Three weeks had to be taken

up in propping the stone revetment and making the wheel solid again.

But, thanks to the skill of the engineer and the power of the machines,

it was all set right, and the boring continued.

No fresh incident henceforth stopped the progress of the work, and on

the 10th of June, twenty days before the expiration of the delay fixed

by Barbicane, the well, quite bricked round, had reached the depth of

900 feet. At the bottom the masonry rested upon a massive block, thirty

feet thick, whilst at the top it was on a level with the soil.

President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly congratulated

the engineer Murchison; his cyclopean work had been accomplished with

extraordinary rapidity.

During these eight months Barbicane did not leave Stony Hill for a

minute; whilst he narrowly watched over the boring operations, he took

every precaution to insure the health and well-being of his workmen, and

he was fortunate enough to avoid the epidemics common to large

agglomerations of men, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe

exposed to tropical influence.

It is true that several workmen paid with their lives for the

carelessness engendered by these dangerous occupations; but such

deplorable misfortunes cannot be avoided, and these are details that

Americans pay very little attention to. They are more occupied with

humanity in general than with individuals in particular. However,

Barbicane professed the contrary principles, and applied them upon every

occasion. Thanks to his care, to his intelligence and respectful

intervention in difficult cases, to his prodigious and humane wisdom,

the average of catastrophes did not exceed that of cities on the other

side of the Atlantic, amongst others those of France, where they count

about one accident upon every 200,000 francs of work.

CHAPTER XV - THE CEREMONY OF THE CASTING.

During the eight months that were employed in the operation of boring

the preparatory works of the casting had been conducted simultaneously

with extreme rapidity; a stranger arriving at Stony Hill would have been

much surprised at what he saw there.

Six hundred yards from the well, and standing in a circle round it as a

central point, were 1,200 furnaces, each six feet wide and three yards

apart. The line made by these 1,200 furnaces was two miles long. They

were all built on the same model, with high quadrangular chimneys, and

had a singular effect. J.T. Maston thought the architectural arrangement

superb. It reminded him of the monuments at Washington. He thought there

was nothing finer in the world, not even in Greece, where he

acknowledged never to have been.

It will be remembered that at their third meeting the committee decided

to use cast-iron for the Columbiad, and in particular the grey

description. This metal is, in fact, the most tenacious, ductile, and

malleable, suitable for all moulding operations, and when smelted with

pit coal it is of superior quality for engine-cylinders, hydraulic

presses, &c.

But cast-iron, if it has undergone a single fusion, is rarely

homogeneous enough; and it is by means of a second fusion that it is

purified, refined, and dispossessed of its last earthly deposits.

Before being forwarded to Tampa Town, the iron ore, smelted in the great

furnaces of Goldspring, and put in contact with coal and silicium heated

to a high temperature, was transformed into cast-iron. After this first

operation the metal was taken to Stony Hill. But there were 136 millions

of pounds of cast-iron, a bulk too expensive to be sent by railway; the

price of transport would have doubled that of the raw material. It

appeared preferable to freight vessels at New York and to load them with

the iron in bars; no less than sixty-eight vessels of 1,000 tons were

required, quite a fleet, which on May 3rd left New York, took the Ocean

route, coasted the American shores, entered the Bahama Channel, doubled

the point of Florida, and on the 10th of the same month entered the Bay

of Espiritu-Santo and anchored safely in the port of Tampa Town. There

the vessels were unloaded and their cargo carried by railway to Stony

Hill, and about the middle of January the enormous mass of metal was

delivered at its destination.

It will easily be understood that 1,200 furnaces were not too many to

melt these 60,000 tons of iron simultaneously. Each of these furnaces

contained about 1,400,000 lbs. of metal; they had been built on the

model of those used for the casting of the Rodman gun; they were

trapezoidal in form, with a high elliptical arch. The warming apparatus

and the chimney were placed at the two extremities of the furnace, so

that it was equally heated throughout. These furnaces, built of

fireproof brick, were filled with coal-grates and a "sole" for the bars

of iron; this sole, inclosed at an angle of 25°, allowed the metal to

flow into the receiving-troughs; from thence 1,200 converging trenches

carried it down to the central well.

The day following that upon which the works of masonry and casting were

terminated, Barbicane set to work upon the interior mould; his object

now was to raise in the centre of the well, with a coincident axis, a

cylinder 900 feet high and nine in diameter, to exactly fill up the

space reserved for the bore of the Columbiad. This cylinder was made of

a mixture of clay and sand, with the addition of hay and straw. The

space left between the mould and the masonry was to be filled with the

molten metal, which would thus make the sides of the cannon six feet

thick.

This cylinder, in order to have its equilibrium maintained, had to be

consolidated with iron bands and fixed at intervals by means of

cross-clamps fastened into the stone lining; after the casting these

clamps would be lost in the block of metal, which would not be the worse

for them.

This operation was completed on the 8th of July, and the casting was

fixed for the 10th.

"The casting will be a fine ceremony," said J.T. Maston to his friend

Barbicane.

"Undoubtedly," answered Barbicane, "but it will not be a public one!"

"What! you will not open the doors of the inclosure to all comers?"

"Certainly not; the casting of the Columbiad is a delicate, not to say a

dangerous, operation, and I prefer that it should be done with closed

doors. When the projectile is discharged you may have a public ceremony

if you like, but till then, no!"

The president was right; the operation might be attended with unforeseen

danger, which a large concourse of spectators would prevent being

averted. It was necessary to preserve complete freedom of movement. No

one was admitted into the inclosure except a delegation of members of

the Gun Club who made the voyage to Tampa Town. Among them was the brisk

Bilsby, Tom Hunter, Colonel Blomsberry, Major Elphinstone, General

Morgan, and tutti quanti, to whom the casting of the Columbiad was a

personal business. J.T. Maston constituted himself their cicerone; he

did not excuse them any detail; he led them about everywhere, through

the magazines, workshops, amongst the machines, and he forced them to

visit the 1,200 furnaces one after the other. At the end of the 1,200th

visit they were rather sick of it.

The casting was to take place precisely at twelve o'clock; the evening

before each furnace had been charged with 114,000 lbs. of metal in bars

disposed crossway to each other so that the warm air could circulate

freely amongst them. Since early morning the 1,200 chimneys had been

pouring forth volumes of flames into the atmosphere, and the soil was

shaken convulsively. There were as many pounds of coal to be burnt as

metal to be melted. There were, therefore, 68,000 tons of coal throwing

up before the sun a thick curtain of black smoke.

The heat soon became unbearable in the circle of furnaces, the rambling

of which resembled the rolling of thunder; powerful bellows added their

continuous blasts, and saturated the incandescent furnaces with oxygen.

The operation of casting in order to succeed must be done rapidly. At a

signal given by a cannon-shot each furnace was to pour out the liquid

iron and to be entirely emptied.

These arrangements made, foremen and workmen awaited the preconcerted

moment with impatience mixed with emotion. There was no longer any one

in the inclosure, and each superintendent took his place near the

aperture of the run.

Barbicane and his colleagues, installed on a neighbouring eminence,

assisted at the operation. Before them a cannon was planted ready to be

fired as a sign from the engineer.

A few minutes before twelve the first drops of metal began to run; the

reservoirs were gradually filled, and when the iron was all in a liquid

state it was left quiet for some instants in order to facilitate the

separation of foreign substances.

Twelve o'clock struck. The cannon was suddenly fired, and shot its flame

into the air. Twelve hundred tapping-holes were opened simultaneously,

and twelve hundred fiery serpents crept along twelve hundred troughs

towards the central well, rolling in rings of fire. There they plunged

with terrific noise down a depth of 900 feet. It was an exciting and

magnificent spectacle. The ground trembled, whilst these waves of iron,

throwing into the sky their clouds of smoke, evaporated at the same time

the humidity of the mould, and hurled it upwards through the vent-holes

of the masonry in the form of impenetrable vapour. These artificial

clouds unrolled their thick spirals as they went up to a height of 3,000

feet into the air. Any Red Indian wandering upon the limits of the

horizon might have believed in the formation of a new crater in the

heart of Florida, and yet it was neither an irruption, nor a typhoon,

nor a storm, nor a struggle of the elements, nor one of those terrible

phenomena which Nature is capable of producing. No; man alone had

produced those reddish vapours, those gigantic flames worthy of a

volcano, those tremendous vibrations like the shock of an earthquake,

those reverberations, rivals of hurricanes and storms, and it was his

hand which hurled into an abyss, dug by himself, a whole Niagara of

molten metal!

CHAPTER XVI - THE COLUMBIAD.

Had the operation of casting succeeded? People were reduced to mere

conjecture. However, there was every reason to believe in its success,

as the mould had absorbed the entire mass of metal liquefied in the

furnaces. Still it was necessarily a long time impossible to be certain.

In fact, when Major Rodman cast his cannon of 160,000 lbs., it took no

less than a fortnight to cool. How long, therefore, would the monstrous

Columbiad, crowned with its clouds of vapour, and guarded by its intense

heat, be kept from the eyes of its admirers? It was difficult to

estimate.

The impatience of the members of the Gun Club was put to a rude test

during this lapse of time. But it could not be helped. J.T. Maston was

nearly roasted through his anxiety. A fortnight after the casting an

immense column of smoke was still soaring towards the sky, and the

ground burnt the soles of the feet within a radius of 200 feet round the

summit of Stony Hill.

The days went by; weeks followed them. There were no means of cooling

the immense cylinder. It was impossible to approach it. The members of

the Gun Club were obliged to wait with what patience they could muster.

"Here we are at the 10th of August," said J.T. Maston one morning. "It

wants hardly four months to the 1st of December! There still remains the

interior mould to be taken out, and the Columbiad to be loaded! We never

shall be ready! One cannot even approach the cannon! Will it never get

cool? That would be a cruel deception!"

They tried to calm the impatient secretary without succeeding. Barbicane

said nothing, but his silence covered serious irritation. To see himself

stopped by an obstacle that time alone could remove--time, an enemy to

be feared under the circumstances--and to be in the power of an enemy

was hard for men of war.

However, daily observations showed a certain change in the state of the

ground. Towards the 15th of August the vapour thrown off had notably

diminished in intensity and thickness. A few days after the earth only

exhaled a slight puff of smoke, the last breath of the monster shut up

in its stone tomb. By degrees the vibrations of the ground ceased, and

the circle of heat contracted; the most impatient of the spectators

approached; one day they gained ten feet, the next twenty, and on the

22nd of August Barbicane, his colleagues, and the engineer could take

their place on the cast-iron surface which covered the summit of Stony

Hill, certainly a very healthy spot, where it was not yet allowed to

have cold feet.

"At last!" cried the president of the Gun Club with an immense sigh of

satisfaction.

The works were resumed the same day. The extraction of the interior

mould was immediately proceeded with in order to clear out the bore;

pickaxes, spades, and boring-tools were set to work without

intermission; the clay and sand had become exceedingly hard under the

action of the heat; but by the help of machines they cleared away the

mixture still burning at its contact with the iron; the rubbish was

rapidly carted away on the railway, and the work was done with such

spirit, Barbicane's intervention was so urgent, and his arguments,

presented under the form of dollars, carried so much conviction, that on

the 3rd of September all trace of the mould had disappeared.

The operation of boring was immediately begun; the boring-machines were

set up without delay, and a few weeks later the interior surface of the

immense tube was perfectly cylindrical, and the bore had acquired a high

polish.

At last, on the 22nd of September, less than a year after the Barbicane

communication, the enormous weapon, raised by means of delicate

instruments, and quite vertical, was ready for use. There was nothing

but the moon to wait for, but they were sure she would not fail.

J.T. Maston's joy knew no bounds, and he nearly had a frightful fall

whilst looking down the tube of 900 feet. Without Colonel Blomsberry's

right arm, which he had happily preserved, the secretary of the Gun

Club, like a modern Erostatus, would have found a grave in the depths of

the Columbiad.

The cannon was then finished; there was no longer any possible doubt as

to its perfect execution; so on the 6th of October Captain Nicholl

cleared off his debt to President Barbicane, who inscribed in his

receipt-column a sum of 2,000 dollars. It may be believed that the

captain's anger reached its highest pitch, and cost him an illness.

Still there were yet three bets of 3,000, 4,000, and 5,000 dollars, and

if he only gained 2,000, his bargain would not be a bad one, though not

excellent. But money did not enter into his calculations, and the

success obtained by his rival in the casting of a cannon against which

iron plates sixty feet thick would not have resisted was a terrible blow

to him.

Since the 23rd of September the inclosure on Stony Hill had been quite

open to the public, and the concourse of visitors will be readily

imagined.

In fact, innumerable people from all points of the United States flocked

to Florida. The town of Tampa was prodigiously increased during that

year, consecrated entirely to the works of the Gun Club; it then

comprised a population of 150,000 souls. After having surrounded Fort

Brooke in a network of streets it was now being lengthened out on that

tongue of land which separated the two harbours of Espiritu-Santo Bay;

new quarters, new squares, and a whole forest of houses had grown up in

these formerly-deserted regions under the heat of the American sun.

Companies were formed for the erection of churches, schools, private

dwellings, and in less than a year the size of the town was increased

tenfold.

It is well known that Yankees are born business men; everywhere that

destiny takes them, from the glacial to the torrid zone, their instinct

for business is usefully exercised. That is why simple visitors to

Florida for the sole purpose of following the operations of the Gun Club

allowed themselves to be involved in commercial operations as soon as

they were installed in Tampa Town. The vessels freighted for the

transport of the metal and the workmen had given unparalleled activity

to the port. Soon other vessels of every form and tonnage, freighted

with provisions and merchandise, ploughed the bay and the two harbours;

vast offices of shipbrokers and merchants were established in the town,

and the Shipping Gazette each day published fresh arrivals in the port

of Tampa.

Whilst roads were multiplied round the town, in consequence of the

prodigious increase in its population and commerce, it was joined by

railway to the Southern States of the Union. One line of rails connected

La Mobile to Pensacola, the great southern maritime arsenal; thence from

that important point it ran to Tallahassee. There already existed there

a short line, twenty-one miles long, to Saint Marks on the seashore. It

was this loop-line that was prolonged as far as Tampa Town, awakening in

its passage the dead or sleeping portions of Central Florida. Thus

Tampa, thanks to these marvels of industry due to the idea born one line

day in the brain of one man, could take as its right the airs of a large

town. They surnamed it "Moon-City," and the capital of Florida suffered

an eclipse visible from all points of the globe.

Every one will now understand why the rivalry was so great between Texas

and Florida, and the irritation of the Texicans when they saw their

pretensions set aside by the Gun Club. In their long-sighted sagacity

they had foreseen what a country might gain from the experiment

attempted by Barbicane, and the wealth that would accompany such a

cannon-shot. Texas lost a vast centre of commerce, railways, and a

considerable increase of population. All these advantages had been given

to that miserable Floridian peninsula, thrown like a pier between the

waves of the Gulf and those of the Atlantic Ocean. Barbicane, therefore,

divided with General Santa-Anna the Texan antipathy.

However, though given up to its commercial and industrial fury, the new

population of Tampa Town took care not to forget the interesting

operations of the Gun Club. On the contrary, the least details of the

enterprise, every blow of the pickaxe, interested them. There was an

incessant flow of people to and from Tampa Town to Stony Hill--a perfect

procession, or, better still, a pilgrimage.

It was already easy to foresee that the day of the experiment the

concourse of spectators would be counted by millions, for they came

already from all points of the earth to the narrow peninsula. Europe was

emigrating to America.

But until then, it must be acknowledged, the curiosity of the numerous

arrivals had only been moderately satisfied. Many counted upon seeing

the casting who only saw the smoke from it. This was not much for hungry

eyes, but Barbicane would allow no one to see that operation. Thereupon

ensued grumbling, discontent, and murmurs; they blamed the president for

what they considered dictatorial conduct. His act was stigmatised as

"un-American." There was nearly a riot round Stony Hill, but Barbicane

was not to be moved. When, however, the Columbiad was quite finished,

this state of closed doors could no longer be kept up; besides, it would

have been in bad taste, and even imprudent, to offend public opinion.

Barbicane, therefore, opened the inclosure to all comers; but, in

accordance with his practical character, he determined to coin money out

of the public curiosity.

It was, indeed, something to even be allowed to see this immense

Columbiad, but to descend into its depths seemed to the Americans the

ne plus ultra of earthly felicity. In consequence there was not one

visitor who was not willing to give himself the pleasure of visiting the

interior of this metallic abyss. Baskets hung from steam-cranes allowed

them to satisfy their curiosity. It became a perfect mania. Women,

children, and old men all made it their business to penetrate the

mysteries of the colossal gun. The price for the descent was fixed at

five dollars a head, and, notwithstanding this high charge, during the

two months that preceded the experiment, the influx of visitors allowed

the Gun Club to pocket nearly 500,000 dollars!

It need hardly be said that the first visitors to the Columbiad were the

members of the Gun Club. This privilege was justly accorded to that

illustrious body. The ceremony of reception took place on the 25th of

September. A basket of honour took down the president, J.T. Maston,

Major Elphinstone, General Morgan, Colonel Blomsberry, and other members

of the Gun Club, ten in all. How hot they were at the bottom of that

long metal tube! They were nearly stifled, but how delightful--how

exquisite! A table had been laid for ten on the massive stone which

formed the bottom of the Columbiad, and was lighted by a jet of electric

light as bright as day itself. Numerous exquisite dishes, that seemed to

descend from heaven, were successively placed before the guests, and the

richest wines of France flowed profusely during this splendid repast,

given 900 feet below the surface of the earth!

The festival was a gay, not to say a noisy one. Toasts were given and

replied to. They drank to the earth and her satellite, to the Gun Club,

the Union, the Moon, Diana, Phoebe, Selene, "the peaceful courier of the

night." All the hurrahs, carried up by the sonorous waves of the immense

acoustic tube, reached its mouth with a noise of thunder; then the

multitude round Stony Hill heartily united their shouts to those of the

ten revellers hidden from sight in the depths of the gigantic Columbiad.

J.T. Maston could contain himself no longer. Whether he shouted or ate,

gesticulated or talked most would be difficult to determine. Any way he

would not have given up his place for an empire, "not even if the

cannon--loaded, primed, and fired at that very moment--were to blow him

in pieces into the planetary universe."

CHAPTER XVII - A TELEGRAM.

The great work undertaken by the Gun Club was now virtually ended, and

yet two months would still elapse before the day the projectile would

start for the moon. These two months would seem as long as two years to

the universal impatience. Until then the smallest details of each

operation had appeared in the newspapers every day, and were eagerly

devoured by the public, but now it was to be feared that this "interest

dividend" would be much diminished, and every one was afraid of no

longer receiving his daily share of emotions.

They were all agreeably disappointed: the most unexpected,

extraordinary, incredible, and improbable incident happened in time to

keep up the general excitement to its highest pitch.

On September 30th, at 3.47 p.m., a telegram, transmitted through the

Atlantic Cable, arrived at Tampa Town for President Barbicane.

He tore open the envelope and read the message, and, notwithstanding his

great self-control, his lips grew pale and his eyes dim as he read the

telegram.

The following is the text of the message stored in the archives of the

Gun Club:--

"France, Paris,

"September 30th, 4 a.m.

"Barbicane, Tampa Town, Florida, United States.

"Substitute a cylindro-conical projectile for your spherical shell.

Shall go inside. Shall arrive by steamer Atlanta.

"MICHEL ARDAN."

CHAPTER XVIII - THE PASSENGER OF THE ATLANTA.

If this wonderful news, instead of coming by telegraph, had simply

arrived by post and in a sealed envelope--if the French, Irish,

Newfoundland, and American telegraph clerks had not necessarily been

acquainted with it--Barbicane would not have hesitated for a moment. He

would have been quite silent about it for prudence' sake, and in order

not to throw discredit on his work. This telegram might be a practical

joke, especially as it came from a Frenchman. What probability could

there be that any man should conceive the idea of such a journey? And if

the man did exist was he not a madman who would have to be inclosed in a

strait-waistcoat instead of in a cannon-ball?

But the message was known, and Michel Ardan's proposition was already

all over the States of the Union, so Barbicane had no reason for

silence. He therefore called together his colleagues then in Tampa Town,

and, without showing what he thought about it or saying a word about the

degree of credibility the telegram deserved, he read coldly the laconic

text.

"Not possible!"--"Unheard of!"--"They are laughing at

us!"--"Ridiculous!"--"Absurd!" Every sort of expression for doubt,

incredulity, and folly was heard for some minutes with accompaniment of

appropriate gestures. J.T. Maston alone uttered the words:--

"That's an idea!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," answered the major, "but if people have such ideas as that they

ought not to think of putting them into execution."

"Why not?" quickly answered the secretary of the Gun Club, ready for an

argument. But the subject was let drop.

In the meantime Michel Ardan's name was already going about Tampa Town.

Strangers and natives talked and joked together, not about the

European--evidently a mythical personage--but about J.T. Maston, who had

the folly to believe in his existence. When Barbicane proposed to send a

projectile to the moon every one thought the enterprise natural and

practicable--a simple affair of ballistics. But that a reasonable being

should offer to go the journey inside the projectile was a farce, or, to

use a familiar Americanism, it was all "humbug."

This laughter lasted till evening throughout the Union, an unusual thing

in a country where any impossible enterprise finds adepts and partisans.

Still Michel Ardan's proposition did not fail to awaken a certain

emotion in many minds. "They had not thought of such a thing." How many

things denied one day had become realities the next! Why should not this

journey be accomplished one day or another? But, any way, the man who

would run such a risk must be a madman, and certainly, as his project

could not be taken seriously, he would have done better to be quiet

about it, instead of troubling a whole population with such ridiculous

trash.

But, first of all, did this personage really exist? That was the great

question. The name of "Michel Ardan" was not altogether unknown in

America. It belonged to a European much talked about for his audacious

enterprises. Then the telegram sent all across the depths of the

Atlantic, the designation of the ship upon which the Frenchman had

declared he had taken his passage, the date assigned for his

arrival--all these circumstances gave to the proposition a certain air

of probability. They were obliged to disburden their minds about it.

Soon these isolated individuals formed into groups, the groups became

condensed under the action of curiosity like atoms by virtue of

molecular attraction, and the result was a compact crowd going towards

President Barbicane's dwelling.

The president, since the arrival of the message, had not said what he

thought about it; he had let J.T. Maston express his opinions without

manifesting either approbation or blame. He kept quiet, proposing to

await events, but he had not taken public impatience into consideration,

and was not very pleased at the sight of the population of Tampa Town

assembled under his windows. Murmurs, cries, and vociferations soon

forced him to appear. It will be seen that he had all the disagreeables

as well as the duties of a public man.

He therefore appeared; silence was made, and a citizen asked him the

following question:--"Is the person designated in the telegram as Michel

Ardan on his way to America or not?"

"Gentlemen," answered Barbicane, "I know no more than you."

"We must get to know," exclaimed some impatient voices.

"Time will inform us," answered the president coldly.

"Time has no right to keep a whole country in suspense," answered the

orator. "Have you altered your plans for the projectile as the telegram

demanded?"

"Not yet, gentlemen; but you are right, we must have recourse to the

telegraph that has caused all this emotion."

"To the telegraph-office!" cried the crowd.

Barbicane descended into the street, and, heading the immense

assemblage, he went towards the telegraph-office.

A few minutes afterwards a telegram was on its way to the underwriters

at Liverpool, asking for an answer to the following questions:--

"What sort of vessel is the Atlanta? When did she leave Europe? Had

she a Frenchman named Michel Ardan on board?"

Two hours afterwards Barbicane received such precise information that

doubt was no longer possible.

"The steamer Atlanta, from Liverpool, set sail on October 2nd for

Tampa Town, having on board a Frenchman inscribed in the passengers'

book as Michel Ardan."

At this confirmation of the first telegram the eyes of the president

were lighted up with a sudden flame; he clenched his hands, and was

heard to mutter--

"It is true, then! It is possible, then! the Frenchman does exist! and

in a fortnight he will be here! But he is a madman! I never can

consent."

And yet the very same evening he wrote to the firm of Breadwill and Co.

begging them to suspend the casting of the projectile until fresh

orders.

Now how can the emotion be described which took possession of the whole

of America? The effect of the Barbicane proposition was surpassed

tenfold; what the newspapers of the Union said, the way they accepted

the news, and how they chanted the arrival of this hero from the old

continent; how to depict the feverish agitation in which every one

lived, counting the hours, minutes, and seconds; how to give even a

feeble idea of the effect of one idea upon so many heads; how to show

every occupation being given up for a single preoccupation, work

stopped, commerce suspended, vessels, ready to start, waiting in the

ports so as not to miss the arrival of the Atlanta, every species of

conveyance arriving full and returning empty, the bay of Espiritu-Santo

incessantly ploughed by steamers, packet-boats, pleasure-yachts, and

fly-boats of all dimensions; how to denominate in numbers the thousands

of curious people who in a fortnight increased the population of Tampa

Town fourfold, and were obliged to encamp under tents like an army in

campaign--all this is a task above human force, and could not be

undertaken without rashness.

At 9 a.m. on the 20th of October the semaphores of the Bahama Channel

signalled thick smoke on the horizon. Two hours later a large steamer

exchanged signals with them. The name Atlanta was immediately sent to

Tampa Town. At 4 p.m. the English vessel entered the bay of

Espiritu-Santo. At 5 p.m. she passed the entrance to Hillisboro Harbour,

and at 6 p.m. weighed anchor in the port of Tampa Town.

The anchor had not reached its sandy bed before 500 vessels surrounded

the Atlanta and the steamer was taken by assault. Barbicane was the

first on deck, and in a voice the emotion of which he tried in vain to

suppress--

"Michel Ardan!" he exclaimed.

"Present!" answered an individual mounted on the poop.

Barbicane, with his arms crossed, questioning eyes, and silent mouth,

looked fixedly at the passenger of the Atlanta.

He was a man forty-two years of age, tall, but already rather stooping,

like caryatides which support balconies on their shoulders. His large

head shook every now and then a shock of red hair like a lion's mane; a

short face, wide forehead, a moustache bristling like a cat's whiskers,

and little bunches of yellow hair on the middle of his cheeks, round and

rather wild-looking, short-sighted eyes completed this eminently feline

physiognomy. But the nose was boldly cut, the mouth particularly humane,

the forehead high, intelligent, and ploughed like a field that was never

allowed to remain fallow. Lastly, a muscular body well poised on long

limbs, muscular arms, powerful and well-set levers, and a decided gait

made a solidly built fellow of this European, "rather wrought than

cast," to borrow one of his expressions from metallurgic art.

The disciples of Lavater or Gratiolet would have easily deciphered in

the cranium and physiognomy of this personage indisputable signs of

combativity--that is to say, of courage in danger and tendency to

overcome obstacles, those of benevolence, and a belief in the

marvellous, an instinct that makes many natures dwell much on superhuman

things; but, on the other hand, the bumps of acquisivity, the need of

possessing and acquiring, were absolutely wanting.

To put the finishing touches to the physical type of the passenger of

the Atlanta, his garments wide, loose, and flowing, open cravat, wide

collar, and cuffs always unbuttoned, through which came nervous hands.

People felt that even in the midst of winter and dangers that man was

never cold.

On the deck of the steamer, amongst the crowd, he bustled about, never

still for a moment, "dragging his anchors," in nautical speech,

gesticulating, making friends with everybody, and biting his nails

nervously. He was one of those original beings whom the Creator invents

in a moment of fantasy, and of whom He immediately breaks the cast.

In fact, the character of Michel Ardan offered a large field for

physiological analysis. This astonishing man lived in a perpetual

disposition to hyperbole, and had not yet passed the age of

superlatives; objects depicted themselves on the retina of his eye with

exaggerated dimensions; from thence an association of gigantic ideas; he

saw everything on a large scale except difficulties and men.

He was besides of a luxuriant nature, an artist by instinct, and witty

fellow; he loved arguments ad hominem, and defended the weak side

tooth and nail.

Amongst other peculiarities he gave himself out as "sublimely ignorant,"

like Shakspeare, and professed supreme contempt for all savants,

"people," said he, "who only score our points." He was, in short, a

Bohemian of the country of brains, adventurous but not an adventurer, a

harebrained fellow, a Phaeton running away with the horses of the sun, a

kind of Icarus with relays of wings. He had a wonderful facility for

getting into scrapes, and an equally wonderful facility for getting out

of them again, falling on his feet like a cat.

In short, his motto was, "Whatever it may cost!" and the love of the

impossible his "ruling passion," according to Pope's fine expression.

But this enterprising fellow had the defects of his qualities. Who risks

nothing wins nothing, it is said. Ardan often risked much and got

nothing. He was perfectly disinterested and chivalric; he would not have

signed the death-warrant of his worst enemy, and would have sold himself

into slavery to redeem a negro.

In France and Europe everybody knew this brilliant, bustling person. Did

he not get talked of ceaselessly by the hundred voices of Fame, hoarse

in his service? Did he not live in a glass house, taking the entire

universe as confidant of his most intimate secrets? But he also

possessed an admirable collection of enemies amongst those he had cuffed

and wounded whilst using his elbows to make a passage in the crowd.

Still he was generally liked and treated like a spoiled child. Every one

was interested in his bold enterprises, and followed them with uneasy

mind. He was known to be so imprudent! When some friend wished to stop

him by predicting an approaching catastrophe, "The forest is only burnt

by its own trees," he answered with an amiable smile, not knowing that

he was quoting the prettiest of Arabian proverbs.

Such was the passenger of the Atlanta, always in a bustle, always

boiling under the action of inward fire, always moved, not by what he

had come to do in America--he did not even think about it--but on

account of his feverish organisation. If ever individuals offered a

striking contrast they were the Frenchman Michel Ardan and the Yankee

Barbicane, both, however, enterprising, bold, and audacious, each in his

own way.

Barbicane's contemplation of his rival was quickly interrupted by the

cheers of the crowd. These cries became even so frantic and the

enthusiasm took such a personal form that Michel Ardan, after having

shaken a thousand hands in which he nearly left his ten fingers, was

obliged to take refuge in his cabin.

Barbicane followed him without having uttered a word.

"You are Barbicane?" Michel Ardan asked him as soon as they were alone,

and in the same tone as he would have spoken to a friend of twenty

years' standing.

"Yes," answered the president of the Gun Club.

"Well, good morning, Barbicane. How are you? Very well? That's right!

that's right!"

"Then," said Barbicane, without further preliminary, "you have decided

to go?"

"Quite decided."

"Nothing will stop you?"

"Nothing. Have you altered your projectile as I told you in my message?"

"I waited till you came. But," asked Barbicane, insisting once more,

"you have quite reflected?"

"Reflected! have I any time to lose? I find the occasion to go for a

trip to the moon, I profit by it, and that is all. It seems to me that

does not want so much reflection."

Barbicane looked eagerly at the man who spoke of his project of journey

with so much carelessness, and with such absence of anxiety.

"But at least," he said, "you have some plan, some means of execution?"

"Excellent means. But allow me to tell you one thing. I like to say my

say once and for all, and to everybody, and to hear no more about it.

Then, unless you can think of something better, call together your

friends, your colleagues, all the town, all Florida, all America if you

like, and to-morrow I shall be ready to state my means of execution, and

answer any objections, whatever they may be. Will that do?"

"Yes, that will do," answered Barbicane.

Whereupon the president left the cabin, and told the crowd about Michel

Ardan's proposition. His words were received with great demonstrations

of joy. That cut short all difficulties. The next day every one could

contemplate the European hero at their ease. Still some of the most

obstinate spectators would not leave the deck of the Atlanta; they

passed the night on board. Amongst others, J.T. Maston had screwed his

steel hook into the combing of the poop, and it would have taken the

capstan to get it out again.

"He is a hero! a hero!" cried he in every tone, "and we are only old

women compared to that European!"

As to the president, after having requested the spectators to withdraw,

he re-entered the passenger's cabin, and did not leave it till the bell

of the steamer rang out the midnight quarter.

But then the two rivals in popularity shook each other warmly by the

hand, and separated friends.

CHAPTER XIX - A MEETING.

The next day the sun did not rise early enough to satisfy public

impatience. Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet questions would be put to

Michel Ardan, would like to have reduced his auditors to a small number

of adepts, to his colleagues for instance. But it was as easy as to dam

up the Falls at Niagara. He was, therefore, obliged to renounce his

project, and let his friend run all the risks of a public lecture. The

new Town Hall of Tampa Town, notwithstanding its colossal dimensions,

was considered insufficient for the occasion, which had assumed the

proportions of a public meeting.

The place chosen was a vast plain, situated outside the town. In a few

hours they succeeded in sheltering it from the rays of the sun. The

ships of the port, rich in canvas, furnished the necessary accessories

for a colossal tent. Soon an immense sky of cloth was spread over the

calcined plain, and defended it against the heat of the day. There

300,000 persons stood and braved a stifling temperature for several

hours whilst awaiting the Frenchman's arrival. Of that crowd of

spectators one-third alone could see and hear; a second third saw badly,

and did not hear. As to the remaining third, it neither heard nor saw,

though it was not the least eager to applaud.

At three o'clock Michel Ardan made his appearance, accompanied by the

principal members of the Gun Club. He gave his right arm to President

Barbicane, and his left to J.T. Maston, more radiant than the midday

sun, and nearly as ruddy.

Ardan mounted the platform, from which his eyes extended over a forest

of black hats. He did not seem in the least embarrassed; he did not

pose; he was at home there, gay, familiar, and amiable. To the cheers

that greeted him he answered by a gracious bow; then with his hand asked

for silence, began to speak in English, and expressed himself very

correctly in these terms:--

"Gentlemen," said he, "although it is very warm, I intend to keep you a

few minutes to give you some explanation of the projects which have

appeared to interest you. I am neither an orator nor a savant, and I

did not count upon having to speak in public; but my friend Barbicane

tells me it would give you pleasure, so I do it. Then listen to me with

your 600,000 ears, and please to excuse the faults of the orator."

This unceremonious beginning was much admired by the audience, who

expressed their satisfaction by an immense murmur of applause.

"Gentlemen," said he, "no mark of approbation or dissent is prohibited.

That settled, I continue. And, first of all, do not forget that you have

to do with an ignorant man, but his ignorance goes far enough to ignore

difficulties. It has, therefore, appeared a simple, natural, and easy

thing to him to take his passage in a projectile and to start for the

moon. That journey would be made sooner or later, and as to the mode of

locomotion adopted, it simply follows the law of progress. Man began by

travelling on all fours, then one fine day he went on two feet, then in

a cart, then in a coach, then on a railway. Well, the projectile is the

carriage of the future, and, to speak the truth, planets are only

projectiles, simple cannon-balls hurled by the hand of the Creator. But

to return to our vehicle. Some of you, gentlemen, may think that the

speed it will travel at is excessive--nothing of the kind. All the

planets go faster, and the earth itself in its movement round the sun

carries us along three times as fast. Here are some examples. Only I ask

your permission to express myself in leagues, for American measures are

not very familiar to me, and I fear getting muddled in my calculations."

The demand appeared quite simple, and offered no difficulty. The orator

resumed his speech.

"The following, gentlemen, is the speed of the different planets. I am

obliged to acknowledge that, notwithstanding my ignorance, I know this

small astronomical detail exactly, but in two minutes you will be as

learned as I. Learn, then, that Neptune goes at the rate of 5,000

leagues an hour; Uranus, 7,000; Saturn, 8,858; Jupiter, 11,675; Mars,

22,011; the earth, 27,500; Venus, 32,190; Mercury, 52,520; some comets,

14,000 leagues in their perihelion! As to us, veritable idlers, people

in no hurry, our speed does not exceed 9,900 leagues, and it will go on

decreasing! I ask you if there is anything to wonder at, and if it is

not evident that it will be surpassed some day by still greater speeds,

of which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agents?"

No one seemed to doubt this affirmation.

"Dear hearers," he resumed, "according to certain narrow minds--that is

the best qualification for them--humanity is inclosed in a Popilius

circle which it cannot break open, and is condemned to vegetate upon

this globe without ever flying towards the planetary shores! Nothing of

the kind! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall

go to the stars as we now go from Liverpool to New York, easily,

rapidly, surely, and the atmospheric ocean will be as soon crossed as

the oceans of the earth! Distance is only a relative term, and will end

by being reduced to zero."

The assembly, though greatly in favour of the French hero, was rather

staggered by this audacious theory. Michel Ardan appeared to see it.

"You do not seem convinced, my worthy hosts," he continued with an

amiable smile. "Well, let us reason a little. Do you know how long it

would take an express train to reach the moon? Three hundred days. Not

more. A journey of 86,410 leagues, but what is that? Not even nine times

round the earth, and there are very few sailors who have not done that

during their existence. Think, I shall be only ninety-eight hours on the

road! Ah, you imagine that the moon is a long way from the earth, and

that one must think twice before attempting the adventure! But what

would you say if I were going to Neptune, which gravitates at

1,147,000,000 leagues from the sun? That is a journey that very few

people could go, even if it only cost a farthing a mile! Even Baron

Rothschild would not have enough to take his ticket!"

This argument seemed greatly to please the assembly; besides, Michel

Ardan, full of his subject, grew superbly eloquent; he felt he was

listened to, and resumed with admirable assurance--

"Well, my friends, this distance from Neptune to the sun is nothing

compared to that of the stars, some of which are billions of leagues

from the sun! And yet people speak of the distance that separates the

planets from the sun! Do you know what I think of this universe that

begins with the sun and ends at Neptune? Should you like to know my

theory? It is a very simple one. According to my opinion, the solar

universe is one solid homogeneous mass; the planets that compose it are

close together, crowd one another, and the space between them is only

the space that separates the molecules of the most compact

metal--silver, iron, or platinum! I have, therefore, the right to

affirm, and I will repeat it with a conviction you will all

share--distance is a vain word; distance does not exist!"

"Well said! Bravo! Hurrah!" cried the assembly with one voice,

electrified by the gesture and accent of the orator, and the boldness of

his conceptions.

"No!" cried J.T. Maston, more energetically than the others; "distance

does not exist!"

And, carried away by the violence of his movements and emotions he could

hardly contain, he nearly fell from the top of the platform to the

ground. But he succeeded in recovering his equilibrium, and thus avoided

a fall that would have brutally proved distance not to be a vain word.

Then the speech of the distinguished orator resumed its course.

"My friends," said he, "I think that this question is now solved. If I

have not convinced you all it is because I have been timid in my

demonstrations, feeble in my arguments, and you must set it down to my

theoretic ignorance. However that may be, I repeat, the distance from

the earth to her satellite is really very unimportant and unworthy to

occupy a serious mind. I do not think I am advancing too much in saying

that soon a service of trains will be established by projectiles, in

which the journey from the earth to the moon will be comfortably

accomplished. There will be no shocks nor running off the lines to fear,

and the goal will be reached rapidly, without fatigue, in a straight

line, 'as the crow flies.' Before twenty years are over, half the earth

will have visited the moon!"

"Three cheers for Michel Ardan!" cried the assistants, even those least

convinced.

"Three cheers for Barbicane!" modestly answered the orator.

This act of gratitude towards the promoter of the enterprise was greeted

with unanimous applause.

"Now, my friends," resumed Michel Ardan, "if you have any questions to

ask me you will evidently embarrass me, but still I will endeavour to

answer you."

Until now the president of the Gun Club had reason to be very satisfied

with the discussion. It had rolled upon speculative theories, upon which

Michel Ardan, carried away by his lively imagination, had shown himself

very brilliant. He must, therefore, be prevented from deviating towards

practical questions, which he would doubtless not come out of so well.

Barbicane made haste to speak, and asked his new friend if he thought

that the moon or the planets were inhabited.

"That is a great problem, my worthy president," answered the orator,

smiling; "still, if I am not mistaken, men of great intelligence--Plutarch,

Swedenborg, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and many others--answered in the

affirmative. If I answered from a natural philosophy point of view I

should do the same--I should say to myself that nothing useless exists

in this world, and, answering your question by another, friend

Barbicane, I should affirm that if the planets are inhabitable, either

they are inhabited, they have been, or they will be."

"Very well," cried the first ranks of spectators, whose opinion had the

force of law for the others.

"It is impossible to answer with more logic and justice," said the

president of the Gun Club. "The question, therefore, comes to this: 'Are

the planets inhabitable?' I think so, for my part."

"And I--I am certain of it," answered Michel Ardan.

"Still," replied one of the assistants, "there are arguments against the

inhabitability of the worlds. In most of them it is evident that the

principles of life must be modified. Thus, only to speak of the planets,

the people must be burnt up in some and frozen in others according as

they are a long or short distance from the sun."

"I regret," answered Michel Ardan, "not to know my honourable opponent

personally. His objection has its value, but I think it may be combated

with some success, like all those of which the habitability of worlds

has been the object. If I were a physician I should say that if there

were less caloric put in motion in the planets nearest to the sun, and

more, on the contrary, in the distant planets, this simple phenomenon

would suffice to equalise the heat and render the temperature of these

worlds bearable to beings organised like we are. If I were a naturalist

I should tell him, after many illustrious savants, that Nature

furnishes us on earth with examples of animals living in very different

conditions of habitability; that fish breathe in a medium mortal to the

other animals; that amphibians have a double existence difficult to

explain; that certain inhabitants of the sea live in the greatest

depths, and support there, without being crushed, pressures of fifty or

sixty atmospheres; that some aquatic insects, insensible to the

temperature, are met with at the same time in springs of boiling water

and in the frozen plains of the Polar Ocean--in short, there are in

nature many means of action, often incomprehensible, but no less real.

If I were a chemist I should say that aërolites--bodies evidently formed

away from our terrestrial globe--have when analysed, revealed

indisputable traces of carbon, a substance that owes its origin solely

to organised beings, and which, according to Reichenbach's experiments,

must necessarily have been 'animalised.' Lastly, if I were a theologian

I should say that Divine Redemption, according to St. Paul, seems

applicable not only to the earth but to all the celestial bodies. But I

am neither a theologian, chemist, naturalist, nor natural philosopher.

So, in my perfect ignorance of the great laws that rule the universe, I

can only answer, 'I do not know if the heavenly bodies are inhabited,

and, as I do not know, I am going to see!'"

Did the adversary of Michel Ardan's theories hazard any further

arguments? It is impossible to say, for the frantic cries of the crowd

would have prevented any opinion from being promulgated. When silence

was again restored, even in the most distant groups, the triumphant

orator contented himself with adding the following considerations:--

"You will think, gentlemen, that I have hardly touched upon this grave

question. I am not here to give you an instructive lecture upon this

vast subject. There is another series of arguments in favour of the

heavenly bodies being inhabited; I do not look upon that. Allow me only

to insist upon one point. To the people who maintain that the planets

are not inhabited you must answer, 'You may be right if it is

demonstrated that the earth is the best of possible worlds; but it is

not so, notwithstanding Voltaire.' It has only one satellite, whilst

Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune have several at their service, an

advantage that is not to be disdained. But that which now renders the

earth an uncomfortable place of abode is the inclination of its axis

upon its orbit. Hence the inequality of day and night; hence the

unfortunate diversity of seasons. Upon our miserable spheroid it is

always either too warm or too cold; we are frozen in winter and roasted

in summer; it is the planet of colds, rheumatism, and consumption,

whilst on the surface of Jupiter, for instance, where the axis has only

a very slight inclination, the inhabitants can enjoy invariable

temperature. There is the perpetual spring, summer, autumn, and winter

zone; each 'Jovian' may choose the climate that suits him, and may

shelter himself all his life from the variations of the temperature. You

will doubtless agree to this superiority of Jupiter over our planet

without speaking of its years, which each lasts twelve years! What is

more, it is evident to me that, under these auspices, and under such

marvellous conditions of existence, the inhabitants of that fortunate

world are superior beings--that savants are more learned, artists more

artistic, the wicked less wicked, and the good are better. Alas! what is

wanting to our spheroid to reach this perfection is very little!--an

axis of rotation less inclined on the plane of its orbit."

"Well!" cried an impetuous voice, "let us unite our efforts, invent

machines, and rectify the earth's axis!"

Thunders of applause greeted this proposition, the author of which could

be no other than J.T. Maston. It is probable that the fiery secretary

had been carried away by his instincts as engineer to venture such a

proposition; but it must be said, for it is the truth, many encouraged

him with their cries, and doubtless, if they had found the resting-point

demanded by Archimedes, the Americans would have constructed a lever

capable of raising the world and redressing its axis. But this point was

wanting to these bold mechanicians.

Nevertheless, this eminently practical idea had enormous success: the

discussion was suspended for a good quarter of an hour, and long, very

long afterwards, they talked in the United States of America of the

proposition so energetically enunciated by the perpetual secretary of

the Gun Club.

CHAPTER XX - THRUST AND PARRY.

This incident seemed to have terminated the discussion, but when the

agitation had subsided these words were heard uttered in a loud and

severe voice:--

"Now that the orator has allowed his fancy to roam, perhaps he would

kindly go back to his subject, pay less attention to theories, and

discuss the practical part of his expedition."

All eyes were turned towards the person who spoke thus. He was a thin,

dry-looking man, with an energetic face and an American beard. By taking

advantage of the agitation in the assembly from time to time he had

gained, by degrees, the front row of spectators. There, with his arms

crossed, his eyes brilliant and bold, he stared imperturbably at the

hero of the meeting. After having asked his question he kept silence,

and did not seem disturbed by the thousands of eyes directed towards him

nor by the disapproving murmur excited by his words. The answer being

delayed he again put the question with the same clear and precise

accent; then he added--

"We are here to discuss the moon, not the earth."

"You are right, sir," answered Michel Ardan, "the discussion has

wandered from the point; we will return to the moon."

"Sir," resumed the unknown man, "you pretend that our satellite is

inhabited. So far so good; but if Selenites do exist they certainly live

without breathing, for--I tell you the fact for your good--there is not

the least particle of air on the surface of the moon."

At this affirmation Ardan shook his red mane; he understood that a

struggle was coming with this man on the real question. He looked at him

fixedly in his turn, and said--

"Ah! there is no air in the moon! And who says so, pray?"

"The savants."

"Indeed?"

"Indeed."

"Sir," resumed Michel, "joking apart, I have a profound respect for

savants who know, but a profound contempt for savants who do not

know."

"Do you know any who belong to the latter category?"

"Yes; in France there is one who maintains that, 'mathematically,' a

bird cannot fly, and another who demonstrates that a fish is not made to

live in water."

"There is no question of those two, sir, and I can quote in support of

my proposition names that you will not object to."

"Then, sir, you would greatly embarrass a poor ignorant man like me!"

"Then why do you meddle with scientific questions which you have never

studied?" asked the unknown brutally.

"Why?" answered Ardan; "because the man who does not suspect danger is

always brave! I know nothing, it is true, but it is precisely my

weakness that makes my strength."

"Your weakness goes as far as madness," exclaimed the unknown in a

bad-tempered tone.

"So much the better," replied the Frenchman, "if my madness takes me to

the moon!"

Barbicane and his colleagues stared at the intruder who had come so

boldly to stand in the way of their enterprise. None of them knew him,

and the president, not reassured upon the upshot of such a discussion,

looked at his new friend with some apprehension. The assembly was

attentive and slightly uneasy, for this struggle called attention to the

dangers and impossibilities of the expedition.

"Sir," resumed Michel Ardan's adversary, "the reasons that prove the

absence of all atmosphere round the moon are numerous and indisputable.

I may say, even, that, à priori if that atmosphere had ever existed,

it must have been drawn away by the earth, but I would rather oppose you

with incontestable facts."

"Oppose, sir," answered Michel Ardan, with perfect gallantry--oppose as

much as you like."

"You know," said the unknown, "that when the sun's rays traverse a

medium like air they are deviated from a straight line, or, in other

words, they are refracted. Well, when stars are occulted by the moon

their rays, on grazing the edge of her disc, do not show the least

deviation nor offer the slightest indication of refraction. It follows,

therefore, that the moon can have no atmosphere."

Every one looked at the Frenchman, for, this once admitted, the

consequences were rigorous.

"In fact," answered Michel Ardan, "that is your best if not only

argument, and a savant, perhaps, would be embarrassed to answer it. I

can only tell you that this argument has no absolute value because it

supposes the angular diameter of the moon to be perfectly determined,

which it is not. But let us waive that, and tell me, my dear sir, if

you admit the existence of volcanoes on the surface of the moon."

"Extinct volcanoes, yes; volcanoes in eruption, no."

"For the sake of argument let us suppose that these volcanoes have been

in eruption for a certain period."

"That is certain, but as they can themselves furnish the oxygen

necessary for combustion the fact of their eruption does not in the

least prove the presence of a lunar atmosphere."

"We will pass on, then," answered Michel Ardan, "and leave this series

of argument and arrive at direct observation. But I warn you that I am

going to quote names."

"Very well."

"In 1715 the astronomers Louville and Halley, observing the eclipse of

the 3rd of May, remarked certain fulminations of a remarkable nature.

These jets of light, rapid and frequent, were attributed by them to

storms in the atmosphere of the moon."

"In 1715," replied the unknown, "the astronomers Louville and Halley

took for lunar phenomena phenomena purely terrestrial, such as meteoric

or other bodies which are generated in our own atmosphere. That was the

scientific aspect of these facts, and I go with it."

"Let us pass on again," answered Ardan, without being confused by the

reply. "Did not Herschel, in 1787, observe a great number of luminous

points on the surface of the moon?"

"Certainly; but without explaining the origin of these luminous points.

Herschel himself did not thereby conclude the necessity of a lunar

atmosphere."

"Well answered," said Michel Ardan, complimenting his adversary; "I see

that you are well up in selenography."

"Yes, sir; and I may add that the most skilful observers, MM. Boeer and

Moedler, agree that air is absolutely wanting on the moon's surface."

A movement took place amongst the audience, who appeared struck by the

arguments of this singular personage.

"We will pass on again," answered Michel Ardan, with the greatest

calmness, "and arrive now at an important fact. A skilful French

astronomer, M. Laussedat, whilst observing the eclipse of July 18th,

1860, proved that the horns of the solar crescent were rounded and

truncated. Now this appearance could only have been produced by a

deviation of the solar rays in traversing the atmosphere of the moon.

There is no other possible explanation of the fact."

"But is this fact authenticated?"

"It is absolutely certain."

An inverse movement brought back the audience to the side of their

favourite hero, whose adversary remained silent.

Ardan went on speaking without showing any vanity about his last

advantage; he said simply--

"You see, therefore, my dear sir, that it cannot be positively affirmed

that there is no atmosphere on the surface of the moon. This atmosphere

is probably not dense, but science now generally admits that it exists."

"Not upon the mountains," replied the unknown, who would not give in.

"No, but in the depths of the valleys, and it is not more than some

hundreds of feet deep."

"Any way you will do well to take your precautions, for the air will be

terribly rarefied."

"Oh, there will always be enough for one man. Besides, once delivered up

there, I shall do my best to economise it and only to breathe it on

great occasions."

A formidable burst of laughter saluted the mysterious interlocutor, who

looked round the assembly daring it proudly.

"Then," resumed Michel Ardan, carelessly, "as we are agreed upon the

presence of some atmosphere, we are forced to admit the presence of some

water--a consequence I am delighted with, for my part. Besides, I have

another observation to make. We only know one side of the moon's disc,

and if there is little air on that side there may be much on the other."

"How so?"

"Because the moon under the action of terrestrial attraction has assumed

the form of an egg, of which we see the small end. Hence the consequence

due to the calculations of Hausen, that its centre of gravity is

situated in the other hemisphere. Hence this conclusion that all the

masses of air and water have been drawn to the other side of our

satellite in the first days of the creation."

"Pure fancies," exclaimed the unknown.

"No, pure theories based upon mechanical laws, and it appears difficult

to me to refute them. I make appeal to this assembly and put it to the

vote to know if life such as it exists upon earth is possible on the

surface of the moon?"

Three hundred thousand hearers applauded this proposition. Michel

Ardan's adversary wished to speak again, but he could not make himself

heard. Cries and threats were hailed upon him.

"Enough, enough!" said some.

"Turn him out!" repeated others.

But he, holding on to the platform, did not move, and let the storm

pass by. It might have assumed formidable proportions if Michel Ardan

had not appeased it by a gesture. He was too chivalrous to abandon his

contradicter in such an extremity.

"You wish to add a few words?" he asked, in the most gracious tone.

"Yes, a hundred! a thousand!" answered the unknown, carried away, "or

rather no, one only! To persevere in your enterprise you must be--"

"Imprudent! How can you call me that when I have asked for a

cylindro-conical bullet from my friend Barbicane so as not to turn round

on the road like a squirrel?"

"But, unfortunate man! the fearful shock will smash you to pieces when

you start."

"You have there put your finger upon the real and only difficulty; but I

have too good an opinion of the industrial genius of the Americans to

believe that they will not overcome that difficulty."

"But the heat developed by the speed of the projectile whilst crossing

the beds of air?"

"Oh, its sides are thick, and I shall so soon pass the atmosphere."

"But provisions? water?"

"I have calculated that I could carry enough for one year, and I shall

only be four days going."

"But air to breathe on the road?"

"I shall make some by chemical processes."

"But your fall upon the moon, supposing you ever get there?"

"It will be six times less rapid than a fall upon the earth, as

attraction is six times less on the surface of the moon."

"But it still will be sufficient to smash you like glass."

"What will prevent me delaying my fall by means of rockets conveniently

placed and lighted at the proper time?"

"But lastly, supposing that all difficulties be solved, all obstacles

cleared away by uniting every chance in your favour, admitting that you

reach the moon safe and well, how shall you come back?"

"I shall not come back."

Upon this answer, which was almost sublime by reason of its simplicity,

the assembly remained silent. But its silence was more eloquent than its

cries of enthusiasm would have been. The unknown profited by it to

protest one last time.

"You will infallibly kill yourself," he cried, "and your death, which

will be only a madman's death, will not even be useful to science."

"Go on, most generous of men, for you prophesy in the most agreeable

manner."

"Ah, it is too much!" exclaimed Michel Ardan's adversary, "and I do not

know why I go on with so childish a discussion. Go on with your mad

enterprise as you like. It is not your fault."

"Fire away."

"No, another must bear the responsibility of your acts."

"Who is that, pray?" asked Michel Ardan in an imperious voice.

"The fool who has organised this attempt, as impossible as it is

ridiculous."

The attack was direct. Barbicane since the intervention of the unknown

had made violent efforts to contain himself and "consume his own smoke,"

but upon seeing himself so outrageously designated he rose directly and

was going to walk towards his adversary, who dared him to his face, when

he felt himself suddenly separated from him.

The platform was lifted up all at once by a hundred vigorous arms, and

the president of the Gun Club was forced to share the honours of triumph

with Michel Ardan. The platform was heavy, but the bearers came in

continuous relays, disputing, struggling, even fighting for the

privilege of lending the support of their shoulders to this

manifestation.

However, the unknown did not take advantage of the tumult to leave the

place. He kept in the front row, his arms folded, still staring at

President Barbicane.

The president did not lose sight of him either, and the eyes of these

two men met like flaming swords.

The cries of the immense crowds kept at their maximum of intensity

during this triumphant march. Michel Ardan allowed himself to be carried

with evident pleasure.

Sometimes the platform pitched and tossed like a ship beaten by the

waves. But the two heroes of the meeting were good sailors, and their

vessel safely arrived in the port of Tampa Town.

Michel Ardan happily succeeded in escaping from his vigorous admirers.

He fled to the Franklin Hotel, quickly reached his room, and glided

rapidly into bed whilst an army of 100,000 men watched under his

windows.

In the meanwhile a short, grave, and decisive scene had taken place

between the mysterious personage and the president of the Gun Club.

Barbicane, liberated at last, went straight to his adversary.

"Come!" said he in a curt voice.

The stranger followed him on to the quay, and they were soon both alone

at the entrance to a wharf opening on to Jones' Fall.

There these enemies, still unknown to one another, looked at each other.

"Who are you?" asked Barbicane.

"Captain Nicholl."

"I thought so. Until now fate has never made you cross my path."

"I crossed it of my own accord."

"You have insulted me."

"Publicly."

"And you shall give me satisfaction for that insult."

"Now, this minute."

"No. I wish everything between us to be kept secret. There is a wood

situated three miles from Tampa--Skersnaw Wood. Do you know it?"

"Yes."

"Will you enter it to-morrow morning at five o'clock by one side?"

"Yes, if you will enter it by the other at the same time."

"And you will not forget your rifle?" said Barbicane.

"Not more than you will forget yours," answered Captain Nicholl.

After these words had been coldly pronounced the president of the Gun

Club and the captain separated. Barbicane returned to his dwelling; but,

instead of taking some hours' rest, he passed the night in seeking means

to avoid the shock of the projectile, and to solve the difficult problem

given by Michel Ardan at the meeting.

CHAPTER XXI - HOW A FRENCHMAN SETTLES AN AFFAIR.

Whilst the duel was being discussed between the president and the

captain--a terrible and savage duel in which each adversary became a

man-hunter--Michel Ardan was resting after the fatigues of his triumph.

Resting is evidently not the right expression, for American beds rival

in hardness tables of marble or granite.

Ardan slept badly, turning over and over between the serviettes that

served him for sheets, and he was thinking of installing a more

comfortable bed in his projectile when a violent noise startled him from

his slumbers. Thundering blows shook his door. They seemed to be

administered with an iron instrument. Shouts were heard in this racket,

rather too early to be agreeable.

"Open!" some one cried. "Open, for Heaven's sake!"

There was no reason why Ardan should acquiesce in so peremptory a

demand. Still he rose and opened his door at the moment it was giving

way under the efforts of the obstinate visitor.

The secretary of the Gun Club bounded into the room. A bomb would not

have entered with less ceremony.

"Yesterday evening," exclaimed J.T. Maston ex abrupto, "our president

was publicly insulted during the meeting! He has challenged his

adversary, who is no other than Captain Nicholl! They are going to fight

this morning in Skersnaw Wood! I learnt it all from Barbicane himself!

If he is killed our project will be at an end! This duel must be

prevented! Now one man only can have enough empire over Barbicane to

stop it, and that man is Michel Ardan."

Whilst J.T. Maston was speaking thus, Michel Ardan, giving up

interrupting him, jumped into his vast trousers, and in less than two

minutes after the two friends were rushing as fast as they could go

towards the suburbs of Tampa Town.

It was during this rapid course that Maston told Ardan the state of the

case. He told him the real causes of the enmity between Barbicane and

Nicholl, how that enmity was of old date, why until then, thanks to

mutual friends, the president and the captain had never met; he added

that it was solely a rivalry between iron-plate and bullet; and, lastly,

that the scene of the meeting had only been an occasion long sought by

Nicholl to satisfy an old grudge.

There is nothing more terrible than these private duels in America,

during which the two adversaries seek each other across thickets, and

hunt each other like wild animals. It is then that each must envy those

marvellous qualities so natural to the Indians of the prairies, their

rapid intelligence, their ingenious ruse, their scent of the enemy. An

error, a hesitation, a wrong step, may cause death. In these meetings

the Yankees are often accompanied by their dogs, and both sportsmen and

game go on for hours.

"What demons you are!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, when his companion had

depicted the scene with much energy.

"We are what we are," answered J.T. Maston modestly; "but let us make

haste."

In vain did Michel Ardan and he rush across the plain still wet with

dew, jump the creeks, take the shortest cuts; they could not reach

Skersnaw Wood before half-past five. Barbicane must have entered it

half-an-hour before.

There an old bushman was tying up faggots his axe had cut.

Maston ran to him crying--

"Have you seen a man enter the wood armed with a rifle? Barbicane, the

president--my best friend?"

The worthy secretary of the Gun Club thought naïvely that all the world

must know his president. But the bushman did not seem to understand.

"A sportsman," then said Ardan.

"A sportsman? Yes," answered the bushman.

"Is it long since?"

"About an hour ago."

"Too late!" exclaimed Maston.

"Have you heard any firing?" asked Michel Ardan.

"No."

"Not one shot?"

"Not one. That sportsman does not seem to bag much game!"

"What shall we do?" said Maston.

"Enter the wood at the risk of catching a bullet not meant for us."

"Ah!" exclaimed Maston, with an unmistakable accent, "I would rather

have ten bullets in my head than one in Barbicane's head."

"Go ahead, then!" said Ardan, pressing his companion's hand.

A few seconds after the two companions disappeared in a copse. It was a

dense thicket made of huge cypresses, sycamores, tulip-trees, olives,

tamarinds, oaks, and magnolias. The different trees intermingled their

branches in inextricable confusion, and quite hid the view. Michel Ardan

and Maston walked on side by side phasing silently through the tall

grass, making a road for themselves through the vigorous creepers,

looking in all the bushes or branches lost in the sombre shade of the

foliage, and expecting to hear a shot at every step. As to the traces

that Barbicane must have left of his passage through the wood, it was

impossible for them to see them, and they marched blindly on in the

hardly-formed paths in which an Indian would have followed his adversary

step by step.

After a vain search of about an hour's length the two companions

stopped. Their anxiety was redoubled.

"It must be all over," said Maston in despair. "A man like Barbicane

would not lay traps or condescend to any manoeuvre! He is too frank, too

courageous. He has gone straight into danger, and doubtless far enough

from the bushman for the wind to carry off the noise of the shot!"

"But we should have heard it!" answered Michel Ardan.

"But what if we came too late?" exclaimed J.T. Maston in an accent of

despair.

Michel Ardan did not find any answer to make. Maston and he resumed

their interrupted walk. From time to time they shouted; they called

either Barbicane or Nicholl; but neither of the two adversaries

answered. Joyful flocks of birds, roused by the noise, disappeared

amongst the branches, and some frightened deer fled through the copses.

They continued their search another hour. The greater part of the wood

had been explored. Nothing revealed the presence of the combatants. They

began to doubt the affirmation of the bushman, and Ardan was going to

renounce the pursuit as useless, when all at once Maston stopped.

"Hush!" said he. "There is some one yonder!"

"Some one?" answered Michel Ardan.

"Yes! a man! He does not seem to move. His rifle is not in his hand.

What can he be doing?"

"But do you recognise him?" asked Michel Ardan.

"Yes, yes! he is turning round," answered Maston.

"Who is it?"

"Captain Nicholl!"

"Nicholl!" cried Michel Ardan, whose heart almost stopped beating.

"Nicholl disarmed! Then he had nothing more to fear from his adversary?"

"Let us go to him," said Michel Ardan; "we shall know how it is."

But his companion and he had not gone fifty steps when they stopped to

examine the captain more attentively. They imagined they should find a

bloodthirsty and revengeful man. Upon seeing him they remained

stupefied.

A net with fine meshes was hung between two gigantic tulip-trees, and in

it a small bird, with its wings entangled, was struggling with plaintive

cries. The bird-catcher who had hung the net was not a human being but a

venomous spider, peculiar to the country, as large as a pigeon's egg,

and furnished with enormous legs. The hideous insect, as he was rushing

on his prey, was forced to turn back and take refuge in the high

branches of a tulip-tree, for a formidable enemy threatened him in his

turn.

In fact, Captain Nicholl, with his gun on the ground, forgetting the

dangers of his situation, was occupied in delivering as delicately as

possible the victim taken in the meshes of the monstrous spider. When he

had finished he let the little bird fly away; it fluttered its wings

joyfully and disappeared.

Nicholl, touched, was watching it fly through the copse when he heard

these words uttered in a voice full of emotion:--

"You are a brave man, you are!"

He turned. Michel Ardan was in front of him, repeating in every tone--

"And a kind one!"

"Michel Ardan!" exclaimed the captain, "what have you come here for,

sir?"

"To shake hands with you, Nicholl, and prevent you killing Barbicane or

being killed by him."

"Barbicane!" cried the captain, "I have been looking for him these two

hours without finding him! Where is he hiding himself?"

"Nicholl!" said Michel Ardan, "this is not polite! You must always

respect your adversary; don't be uneasy; if Barbicane is alive we shall

find him, and so much the more easily that if he has not amused himself

with protecting birds he must be looking for you too. But when you have

found him--and Michel Ardan tells you this--there will be no duel

between you."

"Between President Barbicane and me," answered Nicholl gravely, "there

is such rivalry that the death of one of us--"

"Come, come!" resumed Michel Ardan, "brave men like you may detest one

another, but they respect one another too. You will not fight."

"I shall fight, sir."

"No you won't."

"Captain," then said J.T. Maston heartily, "I am the president's friend,

his alter ego; if you must absolutely kill some one kill me; that will

be exactly the same thing."

"Sir," said Nicholl, convulsively seizing his rifle, "this joking--"

"Friend Maston is not joking," answered Michel Ardan, "and I understand

his wanting to be killed for the man he loves; but neither he nor

Barbicane will fall under Captain Nicholl's bullets, for I have so

tempting a proposition to make to the two rivals that they will hasten

to accept it."

"But what is it, pray?" asked Nicholl, with visible incredulity.

"Patience," answered Ardan; "I can only communicate it in Barbicane's

presence."

"Let us look for him, then," cried the captain.

The three men immediately set out; the captain, having discharged his

rifle, threw it on his shoulder and walked on in silence.

During another half-hour the search was in vain. Maston was seized with

a sinister presentiment. He observed Captain Nicholl closely, asking

himself if, once the captain's vengeance satisfied, the unfortunate

Barbicane had not been left lying in some bloody thicket. Michel Ardan

seemed to have the same thought, and they were both looking

questioningly at Captain Nicholl when Maston suddenly stopped.

The motionless bust of a man leaning against a gigantic catalpa appeared

twenty feet off half hidden in the grass.

"It is he!" said Maston.

Barbicane did not move. Ardan stared at the captain, but he did not

wince. Ardan rushed forward, crying--

"Barbicane! Barbicane!"

No answer. Ardan was about to seize his arm; he stopped short, uttering

a cry of surprise.

Barbicane, with a pencil in his hand, was tracing geometrical figures

upon a memorandum-book, whilst his unloaded gun lay on the ground.

Absorbed in his work, the savant, forgetting in his turn his duel and

his vengeance, had neither seen nor heard anything.

But when Michel Ardan placed his hand on that of the president, he got

up and looked at him with astonishment.

"Ah!" cried he at last; "you here! I have found it, my friend, I have

found it!"

"What?"

"The way to do it."

"The way to do what?"

"To counteract the effect of the shock at the departure of the

projectile."

"Really?" said Michel, looking at the captain out of the corner of his

eye.

"Yes, water! simply water, which will act as a spring. Ah, Maston!"

cried Barbicane, "you too!"

"Himself," answered Michel Ardan; "and allow me to introduce at the same

time the worthy Captain Nicholl."

"Nicholl!" cried Barbicane, up in a moment. "Excuse me, captain," said

he; "I had forgotten. I am ready."

Michel Ardan interfered before the two enemies had time to recriminate.

"Faith," said he, "it is fortunate that brave fellows like you did not

meet sooner. We should now have to mourn for one or other of you; but,

thanks to God, who has prevented it, there is nothing more to fear. When

one forgets his hatred to plunge into mechanical problems and the other

to play tricks on spiders, their hatred cannot be dangerous to anybody."

And Michel Ardan related the captain's story to the president.

"I ask you now," said he as he concluded, "if two good beings like you

were made to break each other's heads with gunshots?"

There was in this rather ridiculous situation something so unexpected,

that Barbicane and Nicholl did not know how to look at one another.

Michel Ardan felt this, and resolved to try for a reconciliation.

"My brave friends," said he, smiling in his most fascinating manner, "it

has all been a mistake between you, nothing more. Well, to prove that

all is ended between you, and as you are men who risk your lives,

frankly accept the proposition that I am going to make to you."

"Speak," said Nicholl.

"Friend Barbicane believes that his projectile will go straight to the

moon."

"Yes, certainly," replied the president.

"And friend Nicholl is persuaded that it will fall back on the earth."

"I am certain of it," cried the captain.

"Good," resumed Michel Ardan. "I do not pretend to make you agree; all I

say to you is, 'Come with me, and see if we shall stop on the road.'"

"What?" said J.T. Maston, stupefied.

The two rivals at this sudden proposition had raised their eyes and

looked at each other attentively. Barbicane waited for Captain Nicholl's

answer; Nicholl awaited the president's reply.

"Well," said Michel in his most engaging tone, "as there is now no shock

to fear----"

"Accepted!" cried Barbicane.

But although this word was uttered very quickly, Nicholl had finished it

at the same time.

"Hurrah! bravo!" cried Michel Ardan, holding out his hands to the two

adversaries. "And now that the affair is arranged, my friends, allow me

to treat you French fashion. Allons déjeuner."

CHAPTER XXII - THE NEW CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES.

That day all America heard about the duel and its singular termination.

The part played by the chivalrous European, his unexpected proposition

which solved the difficulty, the simultaneous acceptation of the two

rivals, that conquest of the lunar continent to which France and the

United States were going to march in concert--everything tended to

increase Michel Ardan's popularity. It is well known how enthusiastic

the Yankees will get about an individual. In a country where grave

magistrates harness themselves to a dancer's carriage and draw it in

triumph, it may be judged how the bold Frenchman was treated. If they

did not take out his horses it was probably because he had none, but all

other marks of enthusiasm were showered upon him. There was no citizen

who did not join him heart and mind:--Ex pluribus unam, according to

the motto of the United States.

From that day Michel Ardan had not a minute's rest. Deputations from all

parts of the Union worried him incessantly. He was forced to receive

them whether he would or no. The hands he shook could not be counted; he

was soon completely worn out, his voice became hoarse in consequence of

his innumerable speeches, and only escaped from his lips in

unintelligible sounds, and he nearly caught a gastro-enterite after the

toasts he proposed to the Union. This success would have intoxicated

another man from the first, but he managed to stay in a spirituelle

and charming demi-inebriety.

Amongst the deputations of every sort that assailed him, that of the

"Lunatics" did not forget what they owed to the future conqueror of the

moon. One day some of these poor creatures, numerous enough in America,

went to him and asked to return with him to their native country. Some

of them pretended to speak "Selenite," and wished to teach it to Michel

Ardan, who willingly lent himself to their innocent mania, and promised

to take their messages to their friends in the moon.

"Singular folly!" said he to Barbicane, after having dismissed them;

"and a folly that often takes possession of men of great intelligence.

One of our most illustrious savants, Arago, told me that many very

wise and reserved people in their conceptions became much excited and

gave way to incredible singularities every time the moon occupied them.

Do you believe in the influence of the moon upon maladies?"

"Very little," answered the president of the Gun Club.

"I do not either, and yet history has preserved some facts that, to say

the least, are astonishing. Thus in 1693, during an epidemic, people

perished in the greatest numbers on the 21st of January, during an

eclipse. The celebrated Bacon fainted during the moon eclipses, and only

came to himself after its entire emersion. King Charles VI. relapsed six

times into madness during the year 1399, either at the new or full moon.

Physicians have ranked epilepsy amongst the maladies that follow the

phases of the moon. Nervous maladies have often appeared to be

influenced by it. Mead speaks of a child who had convulsions when the

moon was in opposition. Gall remarked that insane persons underwent an

accession of their disorder twice in every month, at the epochs of the

new and full moon. Lastly, a thousand observations of this sort made

upon malignant fevers and somnambulism tend to prove that the Queen of

Night has a mysterious influence upon terrestrial maladies."

"But how? why?" asked Barbicane.

"Why?" answered Ardan. "Why, the only thing I can tell you is what Arago

repeated nineteen centuries after Plutarch. Perhaps it is because it is

not true."

In the height of his triumph Michel Ardan could not escape any of the

annoyances incidental to a celebrated man. Managers of entertainments

wished to exhibit him. Barnum offered him a million dollars to show him

as a curious animal in the different towns of the United States.

Still, though he refused to satisfy public curiosity in that way, his

portraits went all over the world, and occupied the place of honour in

albums; proofs were made of all sizes from life size to medallions.

Every one could possess the hero in all positions--head, bust, standing,

full-face, profile, three-quarters, back. Fifteen hundred thousand

copies were taken, and it would have been a fine occasion to get money

by relics, but he did not profit by it. If he had sold his hairs for a

dollar apiece there would have remained enough to make his fortune!

To tell the truth, this popularity did not displease him. On the

contrary, he put himself at the disposition of the public, and

corresponded with the entire universe. They repeated his witticisms,

especially those he did not perpetrate.

Not only had he all the men for him, but the women too. What an infinite

number of good marriages he might have made if he had taken a fancy to

"settle!" Old maids especially dreamt before his portraits day and

night.

It is certain that he would have found female companions by hundreds,

even if he had imposed the condition of following him up into the air.

Women are intrepid when they are not afraid of everything. But he had no

intention of transplanting a race of Franco-Americans upon the lunar

continent, so he refused.

"I do not mean," said he, "to play the part of Adam with a daughter of

Eve up there. I might meet with serpents!"

As soon as he could withdraw from the joys of triumph, too often

repeated, he went with his friends to pay a visit to the Columbiad. He

owed it that. Besides, he was getting very learned in ballistics since

he had lived with Barbicane, J.T. Maston, and tutti quanti. His

greatest pleasure consisted in repeating to these brave artillerymen

that they were only amiable and learned murderers. He was always joking

about it. The day he visited the Columbiad he greatly admired it, and

went down to the bore of the gigantic mortar that was soon to hurl him

towards the Queen of Night.

"At least," said he, "that cannon will not hurt anybody, which is

already very astonishing on the part of a cannon. But as to your engines

that destroy, burn, smash, and kill, don't talk to me about them!"

It is necessary to report here a proposition made by J.T. Maston. When

the secretary of the Gun Club heard Barbicane and Nicholl accept Michel

Ardan's proposition he resolved to join them, and make a party of four.

One day he asked to go. Barbicane, grieved at having to refuse, made him

understand that the projectile could not carry so many passengers. J.T.

Maston, in despair, went to Michel Ardan, who advised him to be

resigned, adding one or two arguments ad hominem.

"You see, old fellow," he said to him, "you must not be offended, but

really, between ourselves, you are too incomplete to present yourself in

the moon."

"Incomplete!" cried the valiant cripple.

"Yes, my brave friend. Suppose we should meet with inhabitants up there.

Do you want to give them a sorry idea of what goes on here, teach them

what war is, show them that we employ the best part of our time in

devouring each other and breaking arms and limbs, and that upon a globe

that could feed a hundred thousand millions of inhabitants, and where

there are hardly twelve hundred millions? Why, my worthy friend, you

would have us shown to the door!"

"But if you arrive smashed to pieces," replied J.T. Maston, "you will be

as incomplete as I."

"Certainly," answered Michel Ardan, "but we shall not arrive in pieces."

In fact, a preparatory experiment, tried on the 18th of October, had

been attended with the best results, and given rise to the most

legitimate hopes. Barbicane, wishing to know the effect of the shock at

the moment of the projectile's departure, sent for a 32-inch mortar from

Pensacola Arsenal. It was installed upon the quay of Hillisboro Harbour,

in order that the bomb might fall into the sea, and the shock of its

fall be deadened. He only wished to experiment upon the shock of its

departure, not that of its arrival.

A hollow projectile was prepared with the greatest care for this curious

experiment. A thick wadding put upon a network of springs made of the

best steel lined it inside. It was quite a wadded nest.

"What a pity one can't go in it!" said J.T. Maston, regretting that his

size did not allow him to make the venture.

Into this charming bomb, which was closed by means of a lid, screwed

down, they put first a large cat, then a squirrel belonging to the

perpetual secretary of the Gun Club, which J.T. Maston was very fond of.

But they wished to know how this little animal, not likely to be giddy,

would support this experimental journey.

The mortar was loaded with 160 lbs. of powder and the bomb. It was then

fired.

The projectile immediately rose with rapidity, described a majestic

parabola, attained a height of about a thousand feet, and then with a

graceful curve fell into the waves.

Without losing an instant, a vessel was sent to the spot where it fell;

skilful divers sank under water and fastened cable-chains to the handles

of the bomb, which was rapidly hoisted on board. Five minutes had not

elapsed between the time the animals were shut up and the unscrewing of

their prison lid.

Ardan, Barbicane, Maston, and Nicholl were upon the vessel, and they

assisted at the operation with a sentiment of interest easy to

understand. The bomb was hardly opened before the cat sprang out, rather

bruised but quite lively, and not looking as if it had just returned

from an aërial expedition. But nothing, was seen of the squirrel. The

truth was then discovered. The cat had eaten its travelling companion.

J.T. Maston was very grieved at the loss of his poor squirrel, and

proposed to inscribe it in the martyrology of science.

However that may be, after this experiment all hesitation and fear were

at an end; besides, Barbicane's plans were destined further to perfect

the projectile, and destroy almost entirely the effect of the shock.

There was nothing more to do but to start.

Two days later Michel Ardan received a message from the President of

the Union, an honour which he much appreciated.

After the example of his chivalrous countryman, La Fayette, the

government had bestowed upon him the title of "Citizen of the United

States of America."

CHAPTER XXIII - THE PROJECTILE COMPARTMENT.

After the celebrated Columbiad was completed public interest immediately

centred upon the projectile, the new vehicle destined to transport the

three bold adventurers across space. No one had forgotten that in his

despatch of September 30th Michel Ardan asked for a modification of the

plans laid out by the members of the committee.

President Barbicane then thought with reason that the form of the

projectile was of slight importance, for, after crossing the atmosphere

in a few seconds, it would meet with vacuum. The committee had therefore

chosen the round form, so that the ball might turn over and over and do

as it liked. But as soon as it had to be made into a vehicle, that was

another thing. Michel Ardan did not want to travel squirrel-fashion; he

wished to go up head up and feet down with as much dignity as in the car

of a balloon, quicker of course, but without unseemly gambols.

New plans were, therefore, sent to the firm of Breadwill and Co., of

Albany, with the recommendation to execute them without delay. The

projectile, thus modified, was cast on the 2nd of November, and sent

immediately to Stony Hill by the Eastern Railway.

On the 10th it arrived without accident at its place of destination.

Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl awaited with the most lively

impatience this "projectile compartment" in which they were to take

their passage for the discovery of a new world.

It must be acknowledged that it was a magnificent piece of metal, a

metallurgic production that did the greatest honour to the industrial

genius of the Americans. It was the first time that aluminium had been

obtained in so large a mass, which result might be justly regarded as

prodigious. This precious projectile sparkled in the rays of the sun.

Seeing it in its imposing shape with its conical top, it might easily

have been taken for one of those extinguisher-shaped towers that

architects of the Middle Ages put at the angles of their castles. It

only wanted loopholes and a weathercock.

"I expect," exclaimed Michel Ardan, "to see a man armed cap-à-pie come

out of it. We shall be like feudal lords in there; with a little

artillery we could hold our own against a whole army of Selenites--that

is, if there are any in the moon!"

"Then the vehicle pleases you?" asked Barbicane.

"Yes, yes! certainly," answered Michel Ardan, who was examining it as an

artist. "I only regret that its form is not a little more slender, its

cone more graceful; it ought to be terminated by a metal group, some

Gothic ornament, a salamander escaping from it with outspread wings and

open beak."

"What would be the use?" said Barbicane, whose positive mind was little

sensitive to the beauties of art.

"Ah, friend Barbicane, I am afraid you will never understand the use, or

you would not ask!"

"Well, tell me, at all events, my brave companion."

"Well, my friend, I think we ought always to put a little art in all we

do. Do you know an Indian play called The Child's Chariot?"

"Not even by name," answered Barbicane.

"I am not surprised at that," continued Michel Ardan. "Learn, then, that

in that play there is a robber who, when in the act of piercing the wall

of a house, stops to consider whether he shall make his hole in the

shape of a lyre, a flower, or a bird. Well, tell me, friend Barbicane,

if at that epoch you had been his judge would you have condemned that

robber?"

"Without hesitation," answered the president of the Gun Club, "and as a

burglar too."

"Well, I should have acquitted him, friend Barbicane. That is why you

could never understand me."

"I will not even try, my valiant artist."

"But, at least," continued Michel Ardan, "as the exterior of our

projectile compartment leaves much to be desired, I shall be allowed to

furnish the inside as I choose, and with all luxury suitable to

ambassadors from the earth."

"About that, my brave Michel," answered Barbicane, "you can do entirely

as you please."

But before passing to the agreeable the president of the Gun Club had

thought of the useful, and the means he had invented for lessening the

effects of the shock were applied with perfect intelligence.

Barbicane had said to himself, not unreasonably, that no spring would be

sufficiently powerful to deaden the shock, and during his famous

promenade in Skersnaw Wood he had ended by solving this great difficulty

in an ingenious fashion. He depended upon water to render him this

signal service. This is how:--

The projectile was to be filled to the depth of three feet with water

destined to support a water-tight wooden disc, which easily worked

within the walls of the projectile. It was upon this raft that the

travellers were to take their place. As to the liquid mass, it was

divided by horizontal partitions which the departing shock would

successively break; then each sheet of water, from the lowest to the

highest, escaping by valves in the upper part of the projectile, thus

making a spring, and the disc, itself furnished with extremely powerful

buffers, could not strike the bottom until it had successively broken

the different partitions. The travellers would doubtless feel a violent

recoil after the complete escape of the liquid mass, but the first shock

would be almost entirely deadened by so powerful a spring.

It is true that three feet on a surface of 541 square feet would weigh

nearly 11,500 lbs; but the escape of gas accumulated in the Columbiad

would suffice, Barbicane thought to conquer that increase of weight;

besides, the shock would send out all that water in less than a second,

and the projectile would soon regain its normal weight.

This is what the president of the Gun Club had imagined, and how he

thought he had solved the great question of the recoil. This work,

intelligently comprehended by the engineers of the Breadwill firm, was

marvellously executed; the effect once produced and the water gone, the

travellers could easily get rid of the broken partitions and take away

the mobile disc that bore them at the moment of departure.

As to the upper sides of the projectile, they were lined with a thick

wadding of leather, put upon the best steel springs as supple as

watch-springs. The escape-pipes hidden under this wadding were not even

seen.

All imaginable precautions for deadening the first shock having been

taken, Michel Ardan said they must be made of "very bad stuff" to be

crushed.

The projectile outside was nine feet wide and twelve feet high. In order

not to pass the weight assigned the sides had been made a little less

thick and the bottom thicker, as it would have to support all the

violence of the gases developed by the deflagration of the pyroxyle.

Bombs and cylindro-conical howitzers are always made with thicker

bottoms.

The entrance to this tower of metal was a narrow opening in the wall of

the cone, like the "man-hole" of steam boilers. It closed hermetically

by means of an aluminium plate fastened inside by powerful screw

pressure. The travellers could therefore leave their mobile prison at

will as soon as they had reached the Queen of Night.

But going was not everything; it was necessary to see on the road.

Nothing was easier. In fact, under the wadding were four thick

lenticular footlights, two let into the circular wall of the projectile,

the third in its lower part, and the fourth in its cone. The travellers

could, therefore, observe during their journey the earth they were

leaving, the moon they were approaching, and the constellated spaces of

the sky. These skylights were protected against the shocks of departure

by plates let into solid grooves, which it was easy to move by

unscrewing them. By that means the air contained in the projectile could

not escape, and it was possible to make observations.

All these mechanical appliances, admirably set, worked with the greatest

ease, and the engineers had not shown themselves less intelligent in the

arrangement of the projectile compartment.

Lockers solidly fastened were destined to contain the water and

provisions necessary for the three travellers; they could even procure

themselves fire and light by means of gas stored up in a special case

under a pressure of several atmospheres. All they had to do was to turn

a tap, and the gas would light and warm this comfortable vehicle for six

days. It will be seen that none of the things essential to life, or even

to comfort, were wanting. More, thanks to the instincts of Michel Ardan,

the agreeable was joined to the useful under the form of objects of art;

he would have made a veritable artist's studio of his projectile if room

had not been wanting. It would be mistaken to suppose that three persons

would be restricted for space in that metal tower. It had a surface of

54 square feet, and was nearly 10 feet high, and allowed its occupiers a

certain liberty of movement. They would not have been so much at their

ease in the most comfortable railway compartment of the United States.

The question of provisions and lighting having been solved, there

remained the question of air. It was evident that the air confined in

the projectile would not be sufficient for the travellers' respiration

for four days; each man, in fact, consumes in one hour all the oxygen

contained in 100 litres of air. Barbicane, his two companions, and two

dogs that he meant to take, would consume every twenty-four hours 2,400

litres of oxygen, or a weight equal to 7 lbs. The air in the projectile

must, therefore, be renewed. How? By a very simple method, that of

Messrs. Reiset and Regnault, indicated by Michel Ardan during the

discussion of the meeting.

It is known that the air is composed principally of twenty-one parts of

oxygen and seventy-nine parts of azote. Now what happens in the act of

respiration? A very simple phenomenon, Man absorbs the oxygen of the

air, eminently adapted for sustaining life, and throws out the azote

intact. The air breathed out has lost nearly five per cent, of its

oxygen, and then contains a nearly equal volume of carbonic acid, the

definitive product of the combustion of the elements of the blood by the

oxygen breathed in it. It happens, therefore, that in a confined space

and after a certain time all the oxygen of the air is replaced by

carbonic acid, an essentially deleterious gas.

The question was then reduced to this, the azote being conserved

intact--1. To remake the oxygen absorbed; 2. To destroy the carbonic

acid breathed out. Nothing easier to do by means of chlorate of potash

and caustic potash. The former is a salt which appears under the form of

white crystals; when heated to a temperature of 400° it is transformed

into chlorine of potassium, and the oxygen which it contains is given

off freely. Now 18 lbs. of chlorate of potash give 7 lbs of oxygen--that

is to say, the quantity necessary to the travellers for twenty-four

hours.

As to caustic potash, it has a great affinity for carbonic acid mixed in

air, and it is sufficient to shake it in order for it to seize upon the

acid and form bicarbonate of potash. So much for the absorption of

carbonic acid.

By combining these two methods they were certain of giving back to

vitiated air all its life-giving qualities. The two chemists, Messrs.

Reiset and Regnault, had made the experiment with success.

But it must be said the experiment had only been made in anima vili.

Whatever its scientific accuracy might be, no one knew how man could

bear it.

Such was the observation made at the meeting where this grave question

was discussed. Michel Ardan meant to leave no doubt about the

possibility of living by means of this artificial air, and he offered to

make the trial before the departure.

But the honour of putting it to the proof was energetically claimed by

J.T. Maston.

"As I am not going with you," said the brave artilleryman, "the least I

can do will be to live in the projectile for a week."

It would have been ungracious to refuse him. His wish was complied with.

A sufficient quantity of chlorate of potash and caustic potash was

placed at his disposition, with provisions for a week; then having

shaken hands with his friends, on the 12th of November at 6 a.m., after

having expressly recommended them not to open his prison before the 20th

at 6 p.m., he crept into the projectile, the iron plate of which was

hermetically shut.

What happened during that week? It was impossible to ascertain. The

thickness of the projectile's walls prevented any interior noise from

reaching the outside.

On the 20th of November, at six o'clock precisely, the plate was

removed; the friends of J.T. Maston were rather uneasy. But they were

promptly reassured by hearing a joyful voice shouting a formidable

hurrah!

The secretary of the Gun Club appeared on the summit of the cone in a

triumphant attitude.

He had grown fat!

CHAPTER XXIV - THE TELESCOPE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

On the 20th of October of the preceding year, after the subscription

list was closed, the president of the Gun Club had credited the

Cambridge Observatory with the sums necessary for the construction of a

vast optical instrument. This telescope was to be powerful enough to

render visible on the surface of the moon an object being at least nine

feet wide.

There is an important difference between a field-glass and a telescope,

which it is well to recall here. A field-glass is composed of a tube

which carries at its upper extremity a convex glass called an

object-glass, and at its lower extremity a second glass called ocular,

to which the eye of the observer is applied. The rays from the luminous

object traverse the first glass, and by refraction form an image upside

down at its focus. This image is looked at with the ocular, which

magnifies it. The tube of the field-glass is, therefore, closed at each

extremity by the object and the ocular glasses.

The telescope, on the contrary, is open at its upper extremity. The rays

from the object observed penetrate freely into it, and strike a concave

metallic mirror--that is to say, they are focussed. From thence their

reflected rays meet with a little mirror, which sends them back to the

ocular in such a way as to magnify the image produced.

Thus in field-glasses refraction plays the principal part, and

reflection does in the telescope. Hence the name of refractors given to

the former, and reflectors given to the latter. All the difficulty in

the execution of these optical instruments lies in the making of the

object-glass, whether they be made of glass or metallic mirrors.

Still at the epoch when the Gun Club made its great experiment these

instruments were singularly perfected and gave magnificent results. The

time was far distant when Galileo observed the stars with his poor

glass, which magnified seven times at the most. Since the 16th century

optical instruments had widened and lengthened in considerable

proportions, and they allowed the stellar spaces to be gauged to a depth

unknown before. Amongst the refracting instruments at work at that

period were the glass of the Poulkowa Observatory in Russia, the

object-glass of which measured 15 inches in width, that of the French

optician Lerebours, furnished with an object-glass equally large, and

lastly that of the Cambridge Observatory, furnished with an object-glass

19 inches in diameter.

Amongst telescopes, two were known of remarkable power and gigantic

dimensions. The first, constructed by Herschel, was 36 feet in length,

and had an object-glass of 4 feet 6 inches; it magnified 6,000 times;

the second, raised in Ireland, at Birrcastle, in Parsonstown Park,

belonged to Lord Rosse; the length of its tube was 48 feet and the width

of its mirror 6 feet; it magnified 6,400 times, and it had required an

immense erection of masonry on which to place the apparatus necessary

for working the instrument, which weighed 12-1/2 tons.

But it will be seen that notwithstanding these colossal dimensions the

magnifying power obtained did not exceed 6,000 times in round numbers;

now that power would only bring the moon within 39 miles, and would only

allow objects 60 feet in diameter to be perceived unless these objects

were very elongated.

Now in space they had to deal with a projectile 9 feet wide and 15 long,

so the moon had to be brought within five miles at least, and for that a

magnifying power of 48,000 times was necessary.

Such was the problem propounded to the Cambridge Observatory. They were

not to be stopped by financial difficulties, so there only remained

material difficulties.

First of all they had to choose between telescopes and field-glasses.

The latter had some advantages. With equal object-glasses they have a

greater magnifying power, because the luminous rays that traverse the

glasses lose less by absorption than the reflection on the metallic

mirror of telescopes; but the thickness that can be given to glass is

limited, for too thick it does not allow the luminous rays to pass.

Besides, the construction of these vast glasses is excessively

difficult, and demands a considerable time, measured by years.

Therefore, although images are better given by glasses, an inappreciable

advantage when the question is to observe the moon, the light of which

is simply reflected they decided to employ the telescope, which is

prompter in execution and is capable of a greater magnifying power; only

as the luminous rays lose much of their intensity by traversing the

atmosphere, the Gun Club resolved to set up the instrument on one of the

highest mountains of the Union, which would diminish the depth of the

aërial strata.

In telescopes it has been seen that the glass placed at the observer's

eye produces the magnifying power, and the object-glass which bears this

power the best is the one that has the largest diameter and the greatest

focal distance. In order to magnify 48,000 times it must be much larger

than those of Herschel and Lord Rosse. There lay the difficulty, for the

casting of these mirrors is a very delicate operation.

Happily, some years before a savant of the Institut de France, Léon

Foucault, had just invented means by which the polishing of

object-glasses became very prompt and easy by replacing the metallic

mirror by taking a piece of glass the size required and plating it.

It was to be fixed according to the method invented by Herschel for

telescopes. In the great instrument of the astronomer at Slough, the

image of objects reflected by the mirror inclined at the bottom of the

tube was formed at the other extremity where the eyeglass was placed.

Thus the observer, instead of being placed at the lower end of the tube,

was hoisted to the upper end, and there with his eyeglass he looked down

into the enormous cylinder. This combination had the advantage of doing

away with the little mirror destined to send back the image to the

ocular glass, which thus only reflected once instead of twice; therefore

there were fewer luminous rays extinguished, the image was less feeble,

and more light was obtained, a precious advantage in the observation

that was to be made.

This being resolved upon, the work was begun. According to the

calculations of the Cambridge Observatory staff, the tube of the new

reflector was to be 280 feet long and its mirror 16 feet in diameter.

Although it was so colossal it was not comparable to the telescope

10,000 feet long which the astronomer Hooke proposed to construct some

years ago. Nevertheless the setting up of such an apparatus presented

great difficulties.

The question of its site was promptly settled. It must be upon a high

mountain, and high mountains are not numerous in the States.

In fact, the orographical system of this great country only contains two

chains of average height, amongst which flows the magnificent

Mississippi, which the Americans would call the "king of rivers" if they

admitted any royalty whatever.

On the east rise the Apalachians, the very highest point of which, in

New Hampshire, does not exceed the very moderate altitude of 5,600 feet.

On the west are, however, the Rocky Mountains, that immense chain which

begins at the Straits of Magellan, follows the west coast of South

America under the name of the Andes or Cordilleras, crosses the Isthmus

of Panama, and runs up the whole of North America to the very shores of

the Polar Sea.

These mountains are not very high, and the Alps or Himalayas would look

down upon them with disdain. In fact, their highest summit is only

10,701 feet high, whilst Mont Blanc is 14,439, and the highest summit of

the Himalayas is 26,776 feet above the level of the sea.

But as the Gun Club wished that its telescope, as well as the Columbiad,

should be set up in the States of the Union, they were obliged to be

content with the Rocky Mountains, and all the necessary material was

sent to the summit of Long's Peak in the territory of Missouri.

Neither pen nor language could relate the difficulties of every kind

that the American engineers had to overcome, and the prodigies of

audacity and skill that they accomplished. Enormous stones, massive

pieces of wrought-iron, heavy corner-clamps, and huge portions of

cylinder had to be raised with an object-glass, weighing nearly 30,000

lbs., above the line of perpetual snow for more than 10,000 feet in

height, after crossing desert prairies, impenetrable forests, fearful

rapids far from all centres of population, and in the midst of savage

regions in which every detail of life becomes an insoluble problem, and,

nevertheless, American genius triumphed over all these obstacles. Less

than a year after beginning the works in the last days of the month of

September, the gigantic reflector rose in the air to a height of 280

feet. It was hung from an enormous iron scaffolding; an ingenious

arrangement allowed it to be easily moved towards every point of the

sky, and to follow the stars from one horizon to the other during their

journey across space.

It had cost more than 400,000 dollars. The first time it was pointed at

the moon the observers felt both curious and uneasy. What would they

discover in the field of this telescope which magnified objects 48,000

times? Populations, flocks of lunar animals, towns, lakes, and oceans?

No, nothing that science was not already acquainted with, and upon all

points of her disc the volcanic nature of the moon could be determined

with absolute precision.

But the telescope of the Rocky Mountains, before being used by the Gun

Club, rendered immense services to astronomy. Thanks to its power of

penetration, the depths of the sky were explored to their utmost limits,

the apparent diameter of a great number of stars could be rigorously

measured, and Mr. Clarke, of the Cambridge staff, resolved the Crab

nebula in Taurus, which Lord Rosse's reflector had never been able to

do.

CHAPTER XXV - FINAL DETAILS.

It was the 22nd of November. The supreme departure was to take place ten

days later. One operation still remained to bring it to a happy

termination, a delicate and perilous operation exacting infinite

precautions, and against the success of which Captain Nicholl had laid

his third bet. It was, in fact, nothing less than the loading of the gun

and the introduction into it of 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton. Nicholl had

thought, not without reason, perhaps, that the handling of so large a

quantity of pyroxyle would cause grave catastrophes, and that in any

case this eminently explosive mass would ignite of itself under the

pressure of the projectile.

There were also grave dangers increased by the carelessness of the

Americans, who, during the Federal war, used to load their cannon cigar

in mouth. But Barbicane had set his heart on succeeding, and did not

mean to founder in port; he therefore chose his best workmen, made them

work under his superintendence, and by dint of prudence and precautions

he managed to put all the chances of success on his side.

First he took care not to bring all his charge at once to the inclosure

of Stony Hill. He had it brought little by little carefully packed in

sealed cases. The 400,000 lbs. of pyroxyle had been divided into packets

of 500 lbs., which made 800 large cartridges made carefully by the

cleverest artisans of Pensacola. Each case contained ten, and they

arrived one after the other by the railroad of Tampa Town; by that means

there were never more than 500 lbs. of pyroxyle at once in the

inclosure. As soon as it arrived each case was unloaded by workmen

walking barefoot, and each cartridge transported to the orifice of the

Columbiad, into which they lowered them by means of cranes worked by the

men. Every steam-engine had been excluded, and the least fires

extinguished for two miles round. Even in November it was necessary to

preserve this gun-cotton from the ardour of the sun. So they worked at

night by light produced in a vacuum by means of Rühmkorff's apparatus,

which threw an artificial brightness into the depths of the Columbiad.

There the cartridges were arranged with the utmost regularity, fastened

together by a wire destined to communicate the electric spark to them

all simultaneously.

In fact, it was by means of electricity that fire was to be set to this

mass of gun-cotton. All these single wires, surrounded by isolating

material, were rolled into a single one at a narrow hole pierced at the

height the projectile was to be placed; there they crossed the thick

metal wall and came up to the surface by one of the vent-holes in the

masonry made on purpose. Once arrived at the summit of Stony Hill, the

wire supported on poles for a distance of two miles met a powerful pile

of Bunsen passing through a non-conducting apparatus. It would,

therefore, be enough to press with the finger the knob of the apparatus

for the electric current to be at once established, and to set fire to

the 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton. It is hardly necessary to say that this

was only to be done at the last moment.

On the 28th of November the 800 cartridges were placed at the bottom of

the Columbiad. That part of the operation had succeeded. But what worry,

anxiety, and struggles President Barbicane had to undergo! In vain had

he forbidden entrance to Stony Hill; every day curious sightseers

climbed over the palisading, and some, pushing imprudence to folly, came

and smoked amongst the bales of gun-cotton. Barbicane put himself into

daily rages. J.T. Maston seconded him to the best of his ability,

chasing the intruders away and picking up the still-lighted cigar-ends

which the Yankees threw about--a rude task, for more than 300,000 people

pressed round the palisades. Michel Ardan had offered himself to escort

the cases to the mouth of the gun, but having caught him with a cigar in

his mouth whilst he drove out the intruders to whom he was giving this

unfortunate example, the president of the Gun Club saw that he could not

depend upon this intrepid smoker, and was obliged to have him specially

watched.

At last, there being a Providence even for artillerymen, nothing blew

up, and the loading was happily terminated. The third bet of Captain

Nicholl was therefore much imperilled. There still remained the work of

introducing the projectile into the Columbiad and placing it on the

thick bed of gun-cotton.

But before beginning this operation the objects necessary for the

journey were placed with order in the waggon-compartment. There were a

good many of them, and if they had allowed Michel Ardan to do as he

pleased he would soon have filled up all the space reserved for the

travellers. No one can imagine all that the amiable Frenchman wished to

carry to the moon--a heap of useless trifles. But Barbicane interfered,

and refused all but the strictly necessary.

Several thermometers, barometers, and telescopes were placed in the

instrument-case.

The travellers were desirous of examining the moon during their transit,

and in order to facilitate the survey of this new world they took an

excellent map by Boeer and Moedler, the Mappa Selenographica,

published in four plates, which is justly looked upon as a masterpiece

of patience and observation. It represented with scrupulous exactitude

the slightest details of that portion of the moon turned towards the

earth. Mountains, valleys, craters, peaks, watersheds, were depicted on

it in their exact dimensions, faithful positions, and names, from Mounts

Doerfel and Leibnitz, whose highest summits rise on the eastern side of

the disc, to the Mare Frigoris, which extends into the North Polar

regions.

It was, therefore, a precious document for the travellers, for they

could study the country before setting foot upon it.

They took also three rifles and three fowling-pieces with powder and

shot in great quantity.

"We do not know with whom we may have to deal," said Michel Ardan. "Both

men and beasts may be displeased at our visit; we must, therefore, take

our precautions."

The instruments of personal defence were accompanied by pickaxes,

spades, saws, and other indispensable tools, without mentioning garments

suitable to every temperature, from the cold of the polar regions to the

heat of the torrid zone.

Michel Ardan would have liked to take a certain number of animals of

different sorts, not male and female of every species, as he did not see

the necessity of acclimatising serpents, tigers, alligators, or any

other noxious beasts in the moon.

"No," said he to Barbicane, "but some useful animals, ox or cow, ass or

horse, would look well in the landscape and be of great use."

"I agree with you, my dear Ardan," answered the president of the Gun

Club; "but our projectile is not Noah's Ark. It differs both in

dimensions and object, so let us remain in the bounds of possibility."

At last after long discussions it was agreed that the travellers should

be content to take with them an excellent sporting dog belonging to

Nicholl and a vigorous Newfoundland of prodigious strength. Several

cases of the most useful seeds were included amongst the indispensable

objects. If they had allowed him, Michel Ardan would have taken several

sacks of earth to sow them in. Any way he took a dozen little trees,

which were carefully enveloped in straw and placed in a corner of the

projectile.

Then remained the important question of provisions, for they were

obliged to provide against finding the moon absolutely barren. Barbicane

managed so well that he took enough for a year. But it must be added, to

prevent astonishment, that these provisions consisted of meat and

vegetable compressed to their smallest volume by hydraulic pressure, and

included a great quantity of nutritive elements; there was not much

variety, but it would not do to be too particular in such an expedition.

There was also about fifty gallons of brandy and water for two months

only, for, according to the latest observations of astronomers, no one

doubted the presence of a large quantity of water in the moon. As to

provisions, it would have been insane to believe that the inhabitants of

the earth would not find food up there. Michel Ardan had no doubt about

it. If he had he would not have gone.

"Besides," said he one day to his friends, "we shall not be completely

abandoned by our friends on earth, and they will take care not to forget

us."

"No, certainly," answered J.T. Maston.

"What do you mean?" asked Nicholl.

"Nothing more simple," answered Ardan. "Will not our Columbiad be still

there? Well, then, every time that the moon is in favourable conditions

of zenith, if not of perigee--that is to say, about once a year--could

they not send us a projectile loaded with provisions which we should

expect by a fixed date?"

"Hurrah!" cried J.T. Maston. "That is not at all a bad idea. Certainly

we will not forget you."

"I depend upon you. Thus you see we shall have news regularly from the

globe, and for our part we shall be very awkward if we do not find means

to communicate with our good friends on earth."

These words inspired such confidence that Michel Ardan with his superb

assurance would have carried the whole Gun Club with him. What he said

seemed simple, elementary, and sure of success, and it would have been

sordid attachment to this earth to hesitate to follow the three

travellers upon their lunar expedition.

When the different objects were placed in the projectile the water was

introduced between the partitions and the gas for lighting purposes laid

in. Barbicane took enough chlorate of potash and caustic potash for two

months, as he feared unforeseen delay. An extremely ingenious machine

working automatically put the elements for good air in motion. The

projectile, therefore, was ready, and the only thing left to do was to

lower it into the gun, an operation full of perils and difficulty.

The enormous projectile was taken to the summit of Stony Hill. There

enormous cranes seized it and held it suspended over the metal well.

This was an anxious moment. If the chains were to break under the

enormous weight the fall of such a mass would inevitably ignite the

gun-cotton.

Happily nothing of the sort happened, and a few hours afterwards the

projectile-compartment rested on its pyroxyle bed, a veritable

fulminating pillow. The only effect of its pressure was to ram the

charge of the gun more strongly.

"I have lost," said the captain, handing the sum of 3,000 dollars to

President Barbicane.

Barbicane did not wish to receive this money from his travelling

companion, but he was obliged to give way to Nicholl, who wished to

fulfil all his engagements before leaving the earth.

"Then," said Michel Ardan, "there is but one thing I wish for you now,

captain."

"What is that?" asked Nicholl.

"It is that you may lose your other two wagers. By that means we shall

be sure not to be stopped on the road."

CHAPTER XXVI.

FIRE!

The 1st of December came, the fatal day, for if the projectile did not

start that very evening at 10h. 46m. and 40s. p.m., more than eighteen

years would elapse before the moon would present the same simultaneous

conditions of zenith and perigee.

The weather was magnificent; notwithstanding the approach of winter the

sun shone brightly and bathed in its radiance that earth which three of

its inhabitants were about to leave for a new world.

How many people slept badly during the night that preceded the

ardently-longed-for day! How many breasts were oppressed with the heavy

burden of waiting! All hearts beat with anxiety except only the heart of

Michel Ardan. This impassible person went and came in his usual

business-like way, but nothing in him denoted any unusual preoccupation.

His sleep had been peaceful--it was the sleep of Turenne upon a

gun-carriage the night before the battle.

From early dawn an innumerable crowd covered the prairie, which extended

as far as the eye could reach round Stony Hill. Every quarter of an hour

the railroad of Tampa brought fresh sightseers. According to the Tampa

Town Observer, five millions of spectators were that day upon Floridian

soil.

The greater part of this crowd had been living in tents round the

inclosure, and laid the foundations of a town which has since been

called "Ardan's Town." The ground bristled with huts, cabins, and tents,

and these ephemeral habitations sheltered a population numerous enough

to rival the largest cities of Europe.

Every nation upon earth was represented; every language was spoken at

the same time. It was like the confusion of tongues at the Tower of

Babel. There the different classes of American society mixed in absolute

equality. Bankers, cultivators, sailors, agents, merchants,

cotton-planters, and magistrates elbowed each other with primitive ease.

The creoles of Louisiana fraternised with the farmers of Indiana; the

gentlemen of Kentucky and Tennessee, the elegant and haughty Virginians,

joked with the half-savage trappers of the Lakes and the butchers of

Cincinnati. They appeared in broad-brimmed white beavers and Panamas,

blue cotton trousers, from the Opelousa manufactories, draped in elegant

blouses of écru cloth, in boots of brilliant colours, and extravagant

shirt-frills; upon shirt-fronts, cuffs, cravats, on their ten fingers,

even in their ears, an assortment of rings, pins, diamonds, chains,

buckles, and trinkets, the cost of which equalled the bad taste. Wife,

children, servants, in no less rich dress, accompanied, followed,

preceded, and surrounded their husbands, fathers, and masters, who

resembled the patriarchs amidst their innumerable families.

At meal-times it was a sight to see all these people devour the dishes

peculiar to the Southern States, and eat, with an appetite menacing to

the provisioning of Florida, the food that would be repugnant to a

European stomach, such as fricasseed frogs, monkey-flesh, fish-chowder,

underdone opossum, and raccoon steaks.

The liquors that accompanied this indigestible food were numerous.

Shouts and vociferations to buy resounded through the bar-rooms or

taverns, decorated with glasses, tankards, decanters, and bottles of

marvellous shapes, mortars for pounding sugar, and bundles of straws.

"Mint-julep!" roars out one of the salesmen.

"Claret sangaree!" shouts another through his nose.

"Gin-sling!" shouts one.

"Cocktail! Brandy-smash!" cries another.

"Who'll buy real mint-julep in the latest style?" shouted these skilful

salesmen, rapidly passing from one glass to another the sugar, lemon,

green mint, crushed ice, water, cognac, and fresh pine-apple which

compose this refreshing drink.

Generally these sounds, addressed to throats made thirsty by the spices

they consumed, mingled into one deafening roar. But on this 1st of

December these cries were rare. No one thought of eating and drinking,

and at 4 p.m. there were many spectators in the crowd who had not taken

their customary lunch! A much more significant fact, even the national

passion for gaming was allayed by the general emotion. Thimbles,

skittles, and cards were left in their wrappings, and testified that the

great event of the day absorbed all attention.

Until nightfall a dull, noiseless agitation like that which precedes

great catastrophes ran through the anxious crowd. An indescribable

uneasiness oppressed all minds, and stopped the beating of all hearts.

Every one wished it over.

However, about seven o'clock this heavy silence was suddenly broken. The

moon rose above the horizon. Several millions of hurrahs saluted her

apparition. She was punctual to the appointment. Shouts of welcome broke

from all parts, whilst the blonde Phoebe shone peacefully in a clear

sky, and caressed the enraptured crowd with her most affectionate rays.

At that moment the three intrepid travellers appeared. When they

appeared the cries redoubled in intensity. Unanimously, instantaneously,

the national song of the United States escaped from all the spectators,

and "Yankee Doodle," sung by 5,000,000 of hearty throats, rose like a

roaring tempest to the farthest limits of the atmosphere.

Then, after this irresistible outburst, the hymn was ended, the last

harmonies died away by degrees, and a silent murmur floated over the

profoundly-excited crowd.

In the meantime the Frenchman and the two Americans had stepped into the

inclosure round which the crowd was pressing. They were accompanied by

the members of the Gun Club, and deputations sent by the European

observatories. Barbicane was coolly and calmly giving his last orders.

Nicholl, with compressed lips and hands crossed behind his back, walked

with a firm and measured step. Michel Ardan, always at his ease, clothed

in a perfect travelling suit, with leather gaiters on his legs, pouch at

his side, in vast garment of maroon velvet, a cigar in his mouth,

distributed shakes of the hand with princely prodigality. He was full of

inexhaustible gaiety, laughing, joking, playing pranks upon the worthy

J.T. Maston, and was, in a word, "French," and, what is worse,

"Parisian," till the last second.

Ten o'clock struck. The moment had come to take their places in the

projectile; the necessary mechanism for the descent the door-plate to

screw down, the removal of the cranes and scaffolding hung over the

mouth of the Columbiad, took some time.

Barbicane had set his chronometer to the tenth of a second by that of

the engineer Murchison, who was entrusted with setting fire to the

powder by means of the electric spark; the travellers shut up in the

projectile could thus watch the impassive needle which was going to mark

the precise instant of their departure.

The moment for saying farewell had come. The scene was touching; in

spite of his gaiety Michel Ardan felt touched. J.T. Maston had found

under his dry eyelids an ancient tear that he had, doubtless, kept for

the occasion. He shed it upon the forehead of his dear president.

"Suppose I go too?" said he. "There is still time!"

"Impossible, old fellow," answered Barbicane.

A few moments later the three travelling companions were installed in

the projectile, and had screwed down the door-plate, and the mouth of

the Columbiad, entirely liberated, rose freely towards the sky.

Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan were definitively walled up in

their metal vehicle.

Who could predict the universal emotion then at its paroxysm?

The moon was rising in a firmament of limpid purity, outshining on her

passage the twinkling fire of the stars; she passed over the

constellation of the Twins, and was now nearly halfway between the

horizon and the zenith.

A frightful silence hung over all that scene. There was not a breath of

wind on the earth! Not a sound of breathing from the crowd! Hearts dared

not beat. Every eye was fixed on the gaping mouth of the Columbiad.

Murchison watched the needle of his chronometer. Hardly forty seconds

had to elapse before the moment of departure struck, and each one lasted

a century!

At the twentieth there was a universal shudder, and the thought occurred

to all the crowd that the audacious travellers shut up in the vehicle

were likewise counting these terrible seconds! Some isolated cries were

heard.

"Thirty-five!--thirty-six!--thirty-seven!--thirty--eight!--thirty-nine!

--forty! Fire!!!"

Murchison immediately pressed his finger upon the electric knob and

hurled the electric spark into the depths of the Columbiad.

A fearful, unheard-of, superhuman report, of which nothing could give

an idea, not even thunder or the eruption of volcanoes, was immediately

produced. An immense spout of fire sprang up from the bowels of the

earth as if from a crater. The soil heaved and very few persons caught a

glimpse of the projectile victoriously cleaving the air amidst the

flaming smoke.

CHAPTER XXVII - CLOUDY WEATHER.

At the moment when the pyramid of flame rose to a prodigious height in

the air it lighted up the whole of Florida, and for an incalculable

moment day was substituted for night over a considerable extent of

country. This immense column of fire was perceived for a hundred miles

out at sea, from the Gulf and from the Atlantic, and more than one

ship's captain noted the apparition of this gigantic meteor in his

log-book.

The discharge of the Columbiad was accompanied by a veritable

earthquake. Florida was shaken to its very depths. The gases of the

powder, expanded by heat, forced back the atmospheric strata with

tremendous violence, passing like a waterspout through the air.

Not one spectator remained on his legs; men, women, and children were

thrown down like ears of wheat in a storm; there was a terrible tumult,

and a large number of people were seriously injured. J.T. Maston, who

had very imprudently kept to the fore, was thrown twenty yards backwards

like a bullet over the heads of his fellow-citizens. Three hundred

thousand people were temporarily deafened and as though thunderstruck.

The atmospheric current, after throwing over huts and cabins, uprooting

trees within a radius of twenty miles, throwing the trains off the

railway as far as Tampa, burst upon the town like an avalanche and

destroyed a hundred houses, amongst others the church of St. Mary and

the new edifice of the Exchange. Some of the vessels in the port were

run against each other and sunk, and ten of them were stranded high and

dry after breaking their chains like threads of cotton.

But the circle of these devastations extended farther still, and beyond

the limits of the United States. The recoil, aided by the westerly

winds, was felt on the Atlantic at more than 300 miles from the American

shores. An unexpected tempest, which even Admiral Fitzroy could not have

foreseen, broke upon the ships with unheard-of violence. Several

vessels, seized by a sort of whirlwind before they had time to furl

their sails, were sunk, amongst others the Childe Harold, of

Liverpool, a regrettable catastrophe which was the object of lively

recriminations.

Lastly--although the fact is not warranted except by the affirmation of

a few natives--half-an-hour after the departure of the projectile the

inhabitants of Sierra-Leone pretended that they heard a dull noise, the

last displacement of the sonorous waves, which, after crossing the

Atlantic, died away on the African coast.

But to return to Florida. The tumult once lessened, the wounded and

deaf--in short, all the crowd--rose and shouted in a sort of frenzy,

"Hurrah for Ardan! Hurrah for Barbicane! Hurrah for Nicholl!" Several

millions of men, nose in air, armed with telescopes and every species of

field-glass, looked into space, forgetting contusions and feelings, in

order to look at the projectile. But they sought in vain; it was not to

be seen, and they resolved to await the telegrams from Long's Peak. The

director of the Cambridge Observatory, M. Belfast, was at his post in

the Rocky Mountains, and it was to this skilful and persevering

astronomer that the observations had been entrusted.

But an unforeseen phenomenon, against which nothing could be done, soon

came to put public impatience to a rude test.

The weather, so fine before, suddenly changed; the sky became covered

with clouds. It could not be otherwise after so great a displacement of

the atmospheric strata and the dispersion of the enormous quantity of

gases from the combustion of 200,000 lbs. of pyroxyle. All natural order

had been disturbed. There is nothing astonishing in that, for in

sea-fights it has been noticed that the state of the atmosphere has been

suddenly changed by the artillery discharge.

The next day the sun rose upon an horizon covered with thick clouds, a

heavy and an impenetrable curtain hung between earth and sky, and which

unfortunately extended as far as the regions of the Rocky Mountains. It

was a fatality. A concert of complaints rose from all parts of the

globe. But Nature took no notice, and as men had chosen to disturb the

atmosphere with their gun, they must submit to the consequences.

During this first day every one tried to pierce the thick veil of

clouds, but no one was rewarded for the trouble; besides, they were all

mistaken in supposing they could see it by looking up at the sky, for on

account of the diurnal movement of the globe the projectile was then, of

course, shooting past the line of the antipodes.

However that might be, when night again enveloped the earth--a dark,

impenetrable night--it was impossible to see the moon above the horizon;

it might have been thought that she was hiding on purpose from the bold

beings who had shot at her. No observation was, therefore, possible, and

the despatches from Long's Peak confirmed the disastrous intelligence.

However, if the experiment had succeeded, the travellers, who had

started on the 1st of December, at 10h. 46m. 40s. p.m., were due at

their destination on the 4th at midnight; so that as up to that time it

would, after all, have been difficult to observe a body so small, people

waited with all the patience they could muster.

On the 4th of December, from 8 p.m. till midnight, it would have been

possible to follow the trace of the projectile, which would have

appeared like a black speck on the shining disc of the moon. But the

weather remained imperturbably cloudy, and exasperated the public, who

swore at the moon for not showing herself. Sic transit gloria mundi!

J.T. Maston, in despair, set out for Long's Peak. He wished to make an

observation himself. He did not doubt that his friends had arrived at

the goal of their journey. No one had heard that the projectile had

fallen upon any continent or island upon earth, and J.T. Maston did not

admit for a moment that it could have fallen into any of the oceans with

which the earth is three parts covered.

On the 5th the same weather. The large telescopes of the old

world--those of Herschel, Rosse, and Foucault--were invariably fixed

upon the Queen of Night, for the weather was magnificent in Europe, but

the relative weakness of these instruments prevented any useful

observation.

On the 6th the same weather reigned. Impatience devoured three parts of

the globe. The most insane means were proposed for dissipating the

clouds accumulated in the air.

On the 7th the sky seemed to clear a little. Hopes revived but did not

last long, and in the evening thick clouds defended the starry vault

against all eyes.

Things now became grave. In fact, on the 11th, at 9.11 a.m., the moon

would enter her last quarter. After this delay she would decline every

day, and even if the sky should clear the chances of observation would

be considerably lessened--in fact, the moon would then show only a

constantly-decreasing portion of her disc, and would end by becoming

new--that is to say, she would rise and set with the sun, whose rays

would make her quite invisible. They would, therefore, be obliged to

wait till the 3rd of January, at 12.43 p.m., till she would be full

again and ready for observation.

The newspapers published these reflections with a thousand commentaries,

and did not fail to tell the public that it must arm itself with angelic

patience.

On the 8th no change. On the 9th the sun appeared for a moment, as if to

jeer at the Americans. It was received with hisses, and wounded,

doubtless, by such a reception, it was very miserly of its rays.

On the 10th no change. J.T. Maston nearly went mad, and fears were

entertained for his brain until then so well preserved in its

gutta-percha cranium.

But on the 11th one of those frightful tempests peculiar to tropical

regions was let loose in the atmosphere. Terrific east winds swept away

the clouds which had been so long there, and in the evening the

half-disc of the moon rode majestically amidst the limpid constellations

of the sky.

CHAPTER XXVIII - A NEW STAR.

That same night the news so impatiently expected burst like a

thunderbolt over the United States of the Union, and thence darting

across the Atlantic it ran along all the telegraphic wires of the globe.

The projectile had been perceived, thanks to the gigantic reflector of

Long's Peak.

The following is the notice drawn up by the director of the Cambridge

Observatory. It resumes the scientific conclusion of the great

experiment made by the Gun Club:--

"Long's Peak, December 12th.

"To the Staff of the Cambridge Observatory.

"The projectile hurled by the Columbiad of Stony Hill was perceived by

Messrs. Belfast and J.T. Maston on the 12th of December at 8.47 p.m.,

the moon having entered her last quarter.

"The projectile has not reached its goal. It has deviated to the side,

but near enough to be detained by lunar attraction.

"There its rectilinear movement changed to a circular one of extreme

velocity, and it has been drawn round the moon in an elliptical orbit,

and has become her satellite.

"We have not yet been able to determine the elements of this new star.

Neither its speed of translation or rotation is known. The distance

which separates it from the surface of the moon may be estimated at

about 2,833 miles.

"Now two hypotheses may be taken into consideration as to a modification

in this state of things:--

"Either the attraction of the moon will end by drawing it towards her,

and the travellers will reach the goal of their journey,

"Or the projectile, maintained in an immutable orbit, will gravitate

round the lunar disc till the end of time.

"Observation will settle this point some day, but until now the

experiment of the Gun Club has had no other result than that of

providing our solar system with a new star.

"J BELFAST."

What discussions this unexpected dénouement gave rise to! What a

situation full of mystery the future reserved for the investigations of

science! Thanks to the courage and devotion of three men, this

enterprise of sending a bullet to the moon, futile enough in appearance,

had just had an immense result, the consequences of which are

incalculable. The travellers imprisoned in a new satellite, if they have

not attained their end, form at least part of the lunar world; they

gravitate around the Queen of Night, and for the first time human eyes

can penetrate all her mysteries. The names of Nicholl, Barbicane, and

Michel Ardan would be for ever celebrated in astronomical annals, for

these bold explorers, desirous of widening the circle of human

knowledge, had audaciously rushed into space, and had risked their lives

in the strangest experiment of modern times.

The notice from Long's Peak once made known, there spread throughout the

universe a feeling of surprise and horror. Was it possible to go to the

aid of these bold inhabitants of the earth? Certainly not, for they had

put themselves outside of the pale of humanity by crossing the limits

imposed by the Creator on His terrestrial creatures. They could procure

themselves air for two months; they had provisions for one year; but

after? The hardest hearts palpitated at this terrible question.

One man alone would not admit that the situation was desperate. One

alone had confidence, and it was their friend--devoted, audacious, and

resolute as they--the brave J.T. Maston.

He resolved not to lose sight of them. His domicile was henceforth the

post of Long's Peak--his horizon the immense reflector. As soon as the

moon rose above the horizon he immediately framed her in the field of

his telescope; he did not lose sight of her for an instant, and

assiduously followed her across the stellar spaces; he watched with

eternal patience the passage of the projectile over her disc of silver,

and in reality the worthy man remained in perpetual communication with

his three friends, whom he did not despair of seeing again one day.

"We will correspond with them," said he to any one who would listen, "as

soon as circumstances will allow. We shall have news from them, and they

will have news from us. Besides, I know them--they are ingenious men.

Those three carry with them into space all the resources of art,

science, and industry. With those everything can be accomplished, and

you will see that they will get out of the difficulty."

(FOR SEQUEL, SEE "AROUND THE MOON.")

[Illustration: "They watched thus through the lateral windows."]

*       *       *       *       *

ROUND THE MOON.

INTRODUCTION - PRELIMINARY CHAPTER- CONTAINING A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST PART OF THIS WORK TO SERVE AS PREFACE TO THE SECOND.

During the course of the year 186---- the entire world was singularly

excited by a scientific experiment without precedent in the annals of

science. The members of the Gun Club, a circle of artillerymen

established at Baltimore after the American war, had the idea of putting

themselves in communication with the moon--yes, with the moon--by

sending a bullet to her. Their president, Barbicane, the promoter of the

enterprise, having consulted the astronomers of the Cambridge

Observatory on this subject, took all the precautions necessary for the

success of the extraordinary enterprise, declared practicable by the

majority of competent people. After having solicited a public

subscription which produced nearly 30,000,000 of francs, it began its

gigantic labours.

According to the plan drawn up by the members of the observatory, the

cannon destined to hurl the projectile was to be set up in some country

situated between the 0° and 28° of north or south latitude in order to

aim at the moon at the zenith. The bullet was to be endowed with an

initial velocity of 12,000 yards a second. Hurled on the 1st of December

at thirteen minutes and twenty seconds to eleven in the evening, it was

to get to the moon four days after its departure on the 5th of December

at midnight precisely, at the very instant she would be at her

perigee--that is to say, nearest to the earth, or at exactly 86,410

leagues' distance.

The principal members of the Gun Club, the president, Barbicane, Major

Elphinstone, the secretary, J.T. Maston, and other savants, held

several meetings, in which the form and composition of the bullet were

discussed, as well as the disposition and nature of the cannon, and the

quality and quantity of the powder to be employed. It was decided--1,

that the projectile should be an obus of aluminium, with a diameter of

800 inches; its sides were to be 12 inches thick, and it was to weigh

19,250 lbs.; 2, that the cannon should be a cast-iron Columbiad 900 feet

long, and should be cast at once in the ground; 3, that the charge

should consist of 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton, which, by developing

6,000,000,000 litres of gas under the projectile, would carry it easily

towards the Queen of Night.

These questions settled, President Barbicane, aided by the engineer,

Murchison, chose a site in Florida in 27° 7' north lat. and 5° 7' west

long. It was there that after marvels of labour the Columbiad was cast

quite successfully.

Things were at that pass when an incident occurred which Increased the

interest attached to this great enterprise.

A Frenchman, a regular Parisian, an artist as witty as audacious, asked

leave to shut himself up in the bullet in order to reach the moon and

make a survey of the terrestrial satellite. This intrepid adventurer's

name was Michel Ardan. He arrived in America, was received with

enthusiasm, held meetings, was carried in triumph, reconciled President

Barbicane to his mortal enemy, Captain Nicholl, and in pledge of the

reconciliation he persuaded them to embark with him in the projectile.

The proposition was accepted. The form of the bullet was changed. It

became cylindro-conical. They furnished this species of aërial

compartment with powerful springs and breakable partitions to break the

departing shock. It was filled with provisions for one year, water for

some months, and gas for some days. An automatic apparatus made and gave

out the air necessary for the respiration of the three travellers. At

the same time the Gun Club had a gigantic telescope set up on one of the

highest summits of the Rocky Mountains, through which the projectile

could be followed during its journey through space. Everything was then

ready.

On the 30th of November, at the time fixed, amidst an extraordinary

concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and for the first

time three human beings left the terrestrial globe for the

interplanetary regions with almost the certainty of reaching their goal.

These audacious travellers, Michel Ardan, President Barbicane, and

Captain Nicholl were to accomplish their journey in ninety-seven hours

thirteen minutes and twenty seconds; consequently they could not reach

the lunar disc until the 5th of December, at midnight, at the precise

moment that the moon would be full, and not on the 4th, as some

wrongly-informed newspapers had given out.

But an unexpected circumstance occurred; the detonation produced by the

Columbiad had the immediate effect of disturbing the terrestrial

atmosphere, where an enormous quantity of vapour accumulated. This

phenomenon excited general indignation, for the moon was hidden during

several nights from the eyes of her contemplators.

The worthy J.T. Maston, the greatest friend of the three travellers, set

out for the Rocky Mountains in the company of the Honourable J. Belfast,

director of the Cambridge Observatory, and reached the station of Long's

Peak, where the telescope was set up which brought the moon, apparently,

to within two leagues. The honourable secretary of the Gun Club wished

to observe for himself the vehicle that contained his audacious friends.

The accumulation of clouds in the atmosphere prevented all observation

during the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of December. It was even

thought that no observation could take place before the 3rd of January

in the following year, for the moon, entering her last quarter on the

11th, would after that not show enough of her surface to allow the trace

of the projectile to be followed.

But at last, to the general satisfaction, a strong tempest during the

night between the 11th and 12th of December cleared the atmosphere, and

the half-moon was distinctly visible on the dark background of the sky.

That same night a telegram was sent from Long's Peak Station by J.T.

Maston and Belfast to the staff of the Cambridge Observatory.

This telegram announced that on the 11th of December, at 8.47 p.m., the

projectile hurled by the Columbiad of Stony Hill had been perceived by

Messrs. Belfast and J.T. Maston, that the bullet had deviated from its

course through some unknown cause, and had not reached its goal, but had

gone near enough to be retained by lunar attraction; that its

rectilinear movement had been changed to a circular one, and that it was

describing an elliptical orbit round the moon, and had become her

satellite.

The telegram added that the elements of this new star had not yet been

calculated--in fact, three observations, taking a star in three

different positions, are necessary to determine them. Then it stated

that the distance separating the projectile from the lunar surface

"might be" estimated at about 2,833 leagues, or 4,500 miles.

It ended with the following double hypothesis:--Either the attraction of

the moon would end by carrying the day, and the travellers would reach

their goal; or the projectile, fixed in an immutable orbit, would

gravitate around the lunar disc to the end of time.

In either of these alternatives what would be the travellers' fate? It

is true they had provisions enough for some time. But even supposing

that their bold enterprise were crowned with success, how would they

return? Could they ever return? Would news of them ever reach the earth?

These questions, debated upon by the most learned writers of the time,

intensely interested the public.

A remark may here be made which ought to be meditated upon by too

impatient observers. When a savant announces a purely speculative

discovery to the public he cannot act with too much prudence. No one is

obliged to discover either a comet or a satellite, and those who make a

mistake in such a case expose themselves justly to public ridicule.

Therefore it is better to wait; and that is what impatient J.T. Maston

ought to have done before sending to the world the telegram which,

according to him, contained the last communication about this

enterprise.

In fact, the telegram contained errors of two sorts, verified later:--1.

Errors of observation concerning the distance of the projectile from the

surface of the moon, for upon the date of the 11th of December it was

impossible to perceive it, and that which J.T. Maston had seen, or

thought he saw, could not be the bullet from the Columbiad. 2. A

theoretic error as to the fate of the said projectile, for making it a

satellite of the moon was an absolute contradiction of the laws of

rational mechanics.

One hypothesis only made by the astronomers of Long's Peak might be

realised, the one that foresaw the case when the travellers--if any yet

existed--should unite their efforts with the lunar attraction so as to

reach the surface of the disc.

Now these men, as intelligent as they were bold, had survived the

terrible shock at departure, and their journey in their bullet-carriage

will be related in its most dramatic as well as in its most singular

details. This account will put an end to many illusions and previsions,

but it will give a just idea of the various circumstances incidental to

such an enterprise, and will set in relief Barbicane's scientific

instincts, Nicholl's industrial resources, and the humorous audacity of

Michel Ardan.

Besides, it will prove that their worthy friend J.T. Maston was losing

his time when, bending over the gigantic telescope, he watched the

course of the moon across the planetary regions.

CHAPTER I - FROM 10.20 P.M. TO 10.47 P.M.

When ten o'clock struck, Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl said

good-bye to the numerous friends they left upon the earth. The two dogs,

destined to acclimatise the canine race upon the lunar continents, were

already imprisoned in the projectile. The three travellers approached

the orifice of the enormous iron tube, and a crane lowered them to the

conical covering of the bullet.

There an opening made on purpose let them down into the aluminium

vehicle. The crane's tackling was drawn up outside, and the mouth of the

Columbiad instantly cleared of its last scaffolding.

As soon as Nicholl and his companions were in the projectile he closed

the opening by means of a strong plate screwed down inside. Other

closely-fitting plates covered the lenticular glasses of the skylights.

The travellers, hermetically inclosed in their metal prison, were in

profound darkness.

"And now, my dear companions," said Michel Ardan, "let us make ourselves

at home. I am a domestic man myself, and know how to make the best of

any lodgings. First let us have a light; gas was not invented for

moles!"

Saying which the light-hearted fellow struck a match on the sole of his

boot and then applied it to the burner of the receptacle, in which there

was enough carbonised hydrogen, stored under strong pressure, for

lighting and heating the bullet for 144 hours, or six days and six

nights.

Once the gas lighted, the projectile presented the aspect of a

comfortable room with padded walls, furnished with circular divans, the

roof of which was in the shape of a dome.

The objects in it, weapons, instruments, and utensils, were solidly

fastened to the sides in order to bear the parting shock with impunity.

Every possible precaution had been taken to insure the success of so

bold an experiment.

Michel Ardan examined everything, and declared himself quite satisfied

with his quarters.

"It is a prison," said he, "but a travelling prison, and if I had the

right to put my nose to the window I would take it on a hundred years'

lease! You are smiling, Barbicane. You are thinking of something you do

not communicate. Do you say to yourself that this prison may be our

coffin? Our coffin let it be; I would not change it for Mahomet's, which

only hangs in space, and does not move!"

Whilst Michel Ardan was talking thus, Barbicane and Nicholl were making

their last preparations.

It was 10.20 p.m. by Nicholl's chronometer when the three travellers

were definitely walled up in their bullet. This chronometer was

regulated to the tenth of a second by that of the engineer, Murchison.

Barbicane looked at it.

"My friends," said he, "it is twenty minutes past ten; at thirteen

minutes to eleven Murchison will set fire to the Columbiad; at that

minute precisely we shall leave our spheroid. We have, therefore, still

seven-and-twenty minutes to remain upon earth."

"Twenty-six minutes and thirteen seconds," answered the methodical

Nicholl.

"Very well!" cried Michel Ardan good-humouredly; "in twenty-six minutes

lots of things can be done. We can discuss grave moral or political

questions, and even solve them. Twenty-six minutes well employed are

worth more than twenty-six years of doing nothing. A few seconds of a

Pascal or a Newton are more precious than the whole existence of a crowd

of imbeciles."

"And what do you conclude from that, talker eternal?" asked President

Barbicane.

"I conclude that we have twenty-six minutes," answered Ardan.

"Twenty-four only," said Nicholl.

"Twenty-four, then, if you like, brave captain," answered Ardan;

"twenty-four minutes, during which we might investigate--"

"Michel," said Barbicane, "during our journey we shall have plenty of

time to investigate the deepest questions. Now we must think of

starting."

"Are we not ready?"

"Certainly. But there are still some precautions to be taken to deaden

the first shock as much as possible!"

"Have we not water-cushions placed between movable partitions elastic

enough to protect us sufficiently?"

"I hope so, Michel," answered Barbicane gently; "but I am not quite

sure!"

"Ah, the joker!" exclaimed Michel Ardan. "He hopes! He is not quite

sure! And he waits till we are encased to make this deplorable

acknowledgment! I ask to get out."

"By what means?" asked Barbicane.

"Well!" said Michel Ardan, "it would be difficult. We are in the train,

and the guard's whistle will be heard in twenty-four minutes."

"Twenty!" ejaculated Nicholl.

The three travellers looked at one another for a few seconds. Then they

examined all the objects imprisoned with them.

"Everything is in its place," said Barbicane. "The question now is where

we can place ourselves so as best to support the departing shock. The

position we assume must be important too--we must prevent the blood

rushing too violently to our heads."

"That is true," said Nicholl.

"Then," answered Michel Ardan, always ready to suit the action to the

word, "we will stand on our heads like the clowns at the circus."

"No," said Barbicane; "but let us lie on our sides; we shall thus resist

the shock better. When the bullet starts it will not much matter whether

we are inside or in front."

"If it comes to 'not much matter' I am more reassured," answered Michel

Ardan.

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

"Entirely," answered the captain. "Still thirteen minutes and a-half."

"Nicholl is not a man," exclaimed Michel; "he is a chronometer marking

the seconds, and with eight holes in--"

But his companions were no longer listening to him, and they were making

their last preparations with all the coolness imaginable. They looked

like two methodical travellers taking their places in the train and

making themselves as comfortable as possible. One wonders, indeed, of

what materials these American hearts are made, to which the approach of

the most frightful danger does not add a single pulsation.

Three beds, thick and solidly made, had been placed in the projectile.

Nicholl and Barbicane placed them in the centre of the disc that formed

the movable flooring. There the three travellers were to lie down a few

minutes before their departure.

In the meanwhile Ardan, who could not remain quiet, turned round his

narrow prison like a wild animal in a cage, talking to his friends and

his dogs, Diana and Satellite, to whom it will be noticed he had some

time before given these significant names.

"Up, Diana! up, Satellite!" cried he, exciting them. "You are going to

show to the Selenite dogs how well-behaved the dogs of the earth can be!

That will do honour to the canine race. If we ever come back here I will

bring back a cross-breed of 'moon-dogs' that will become all the rage."

"If there are any dogs in the moon," said Barbicane.

"There are some," affirmed Michel Ardan, "the same as there are horses,

cows, asses, and hens. I wager anything we shall find some hens."

"I bet a hundred dollars we find none," said Nicholl.

"Done, captain," answered Ardan, shaking hands with Nicholl. "But,

by-the-bye, you have lost three bets with the president, for the funds

necessary for the enterprise were provided, the casting succeeded, and

lastly, the Columbiad was loaded without accident--that makes six

thousand dollars."

"Yes," answered Nicholl. "Twenty-three minutes and six seconds to

eleven."

"I hear, captain. Well, before another quarter of an hour is over you

will have to make over another nine thousand dollars to the president,

four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and five thousand

because the bullet will rise higher than six miles into the air."

"I have the dollars," answered Nicholl, striking his coat pocket, "and I

only want to pay."

"Come, Nicholl, I see you are a man of order, what I never could be; but

allow me to tell you that your series of bets cannot be very

advantageous to you."

"Why?" asked Barbicane.

"Because if you win the first the Columbiad will have burst, and the

bullet with it, and Barbicane will not be there to pay you your

dollars."

"My wager is deposited in the Baltimore Bank," answered Barbicane

simply; "and in default of Nicholl it will go to his heirs."

"What practical men you are!" cried Michel Ardan. "I admire you as much

as I do not understand you."

"Eighteen minutes to eleven," said Nicholl.

"Only five minutes more," answered Barbicane.

"Yes, five short minutes!" replied Michel Ardan. "And we are shut up in

a bullet at the bottom of a cannon 900 feet long! and under this bullet

there are 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton, worth more than 1,600,000 lbs. of

ordinary powder! And friend Murchison, with his chronometer in hand and

his eye fixed on the hand and his finger on the electric knob, is

counting the seconds to hurl us into the planetary regions."

"Enough, Michel, enough!" said Barbicane in a grave tone. "Let us

prepare ourselves. A few seconds only separate us from a supreme moment.

Your hands, my friends."

"Yes," cried Michel Ardan, more moved than he wished to appear.

The three bold companions shook hands.

"God help us!" said the religious president.

Michel Ardan and Nicholl lay down on their beds in the centre of the

floor.

"Thirteen minutes to eleven," murmured the captain.

Twenty seconds more! Barbicane rapidly put out the gas, and lay down

beside his companions.

The profound silence was only broken by the chronometer beating the

seconds.

Suddenly a frightful shock was felt, and the projectile, under the

impulsion of 6,000,000,000 litres of gas developed by the deflagration

of the pyroxyle, rose into space.

CHAPTER II - THE FIRST HALF-HOUR.

What had happened? What was the effect of the frightful shock? Had the

ingenuity of the constructors of the projectile been attended by a happy

result? Was the effect of the shock deadened, thanks to the springs, the

four buffers, the water-cushions, and the movable partitions? Had they

triumphed over the frightful impulsion of the initial velocity of 11,000

metres a second? This was evidently the question the thousands of

witnesses of the exciting scene asked themselves. They forgot the object

of the journey, and only thought of the travellers! Suppose one of

them--J.T. Maston, for instance--had been able to get a glimpse of the

interior of the projectile, what would he have seen?

Nothing then. The obscurity was profound in the bullet. Its

cylindro-conical sides had resisted perfectly. There was not a break, a

crack, or a dint in them. The admirable projectile was not hurt by the

intense deflagration of the powders, instead of being liquefied, as it

was feared, into a shower of aluminium.

In the interior there was very little disorder on the whole. A few

objects had been violently hurled up to the roof, but the most important

did not seem to have suffered from the shock. Their fastenings were

intact.

On the movable disc, crushed down to the bottom by the smashing of the

partitions and the escape of the water, three bodies lay motionless. Did

Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan still breathe? Was the projectile

nothing but a metal coffin carrying three corpses into space?

A few minutes after the departure of the bullet one of these bodies

moved, stretched out its arms, lifted up its head, and succeeded in

getting upon its knees. It was Michel Ardan. He felt himself, uttered a

sonorous "Hum," then said--

"Michel Ardan, complete. Now for the others!"

The courageous Frenchman wanted to get up, but he could not stand. His

head vacillated; his blood, violently sent up to his head, blinded him.

He felt like a drunken man.

"Brrr!" said he. "I feel as though I had been drinking two bottles of

Corton, only that was not so agreeable to swallow!"

Then passing his hand across his forehead several times, and rubbing his

temples, he called out in a firm voice--

"Nicholl! Barbicane!"

He waited anxiously. No answer. Not even a sigh to indicate that the

hearts of his companions still beat. He reiterated his call. Same

silence.

"The devil!" said he. "They seem as though they had fallen from the

fifth story upon their heads! Bah!" he added with the imperturbable

confidence that nothing could shake, "if a Frenchman can get upon his

knees, two Americans will have no difficulty in getting upon their feet.

But, first of all, let us have a light on the subject."

Ardan felt life come back to him in streams. His blood became calm, and

resumed its ordinary circulation. Fresh efforts restored his

equilibrium. He succeeded in getting up, took a match out of his pocket,

and struck it; then putting it to the burner he lighted the gas. The

meter was not in the least damaged. The gas had not escaped. Besides,

the smell would have betrayed it, and had this been the case, Michel

Ardan could not with impunity have lighted a match in a medium filled

with hydrogen. The gas, mixed in the air, would have produced a

detonating mixture, and an explosion would have finished what a shock

had perhaps begun.

As soon as the gas was lighted Ardan bent down over his two companions.

Their bodies were thrown one upon the other, Nicholl on the top,

Barbicane underneath.

Ardan raised the captain, propped him up against a divan, and rubbed him

vigorously. This friction, administered skilfully, reanimated Nicholl,

who opened his eyes, instantly recovered his presence of mind, seized

Ardan's hand, and then looking round him--

"And Barbicane?" he asked.

"Each in turn," answered Michel Ardan tranquilly. "I began with you,

Nicholl, because you were on the top. Now I'll go to Barbicane."

That said, Ardan and Nicholl raised the president of the Gun Club and

put him on a divan. Barbicane seemed to have suffered more than his

companions. He was bleeding, but Nicholl was glad to find that the

hemorrhage only came from a slight wound in his shoulder. It was a

simple scratch, which he carefully closed.

Nevertheless, Barbicane was some time before he came to himself, which

frightened his two friends, who did not spare their friction.

"He is breathing, however," said Nicholl, putting his ear to the breast

of the wounded man.

"Yes," answered Ardan, "he is breathing like a man who is in the habit

of doing it daily. Rub, Nicholl, rub with all your might."

And the two improvised practitioners set to work with such a will and

managed so well that Barbicane at last came to his senses. He opened his

eyes, sat up, took the hands of his two friends, and his first words

were--

"Nicholl, are we going on?"

Nicholl and Ardan looked at one another. They had not yet thought about

the projectile. Their first anxiety had been for the travellers, not for

the vehicle.

"Well, really, are we going on?" repeated Michel Ardan.

"Or are we tranquilly resting on the soil of Florida?" asked Nicholl.

"Or at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?" added Michel Ardan.

"Impossible!" cried President Barbicane.

This double hypothesis suggested by his two friends immediately recalled

him to life and energy.

They could not yet decide the question. The apparent immovability of the

bullet and the want of communication with the exterior prevented them

finding it out. Perhaps the projectile was falling through space.

Perhaps after rising a short distance it had fallen upon the earth, or

even into the Gulf of Mexico, a fall which the narrowness of the

Floridian peninsula rendered possible.

The case was grave, the problem interesting. It was necessary to solve

it as soon as possible. Barbicane, excited, and by his moral energy

triumphing over his physical weakness, stood up and listened. A profound

silence reigned outside. But the thick padding was sufficient to shut

out all the noises on earth; However, one circumstance struck

Barbicane. The temperature in the interior of the projectile was

singularly high. The president drew out a thermometer from the envelope

that protected it and consulted it. The instrument showed 81° Fahr.

"Yes!" he then exclaimed--"yes, we are moving! This stifling heat oozes

through the sides of our projectile. It is produced by friction against

the atmosphere. It will soon diminish; because we are already moving in

space, and after being almost suffocated we shall endure intense cold."

"What!" asked Michel Ardan, "do you mean to say that we are already

beyond the terrestrial atmosphere?"

"Without the slightest doubt, Michel. Listen to me. It now wants but

five minutes to eleven. It is already eight minutes since we started.

Now, if our initial velocity has not been diminished by friction, six

seconds would be enough for us to pass the sixteen leagues of atmosphere

which surround our spheroid."

"Just so," answered Nicholl; "but in what proportion do you reckon the

diminution of speed by friction?"

"In the proportion of one-third," answered Barbicane. "This diminution

is considerable, but it is so much according to my calculations. If,

therefore, we have had an initial velocity of 11,000 metres, when we get

past the atmosphere it will be reduced to 7,332 metres. However that may

be, we have already cleared that space, and--"

"And then," said Michel Ardan, "friend Nicholl has lost his two

bets--four thousand dollars because the Columbiad has not burst, five

thousand dollars because the projectile has risen to a greater height

than six miles; therefore, Nicholl, shell out."

"We must prove it first," answered the captain, "and pay afterwards. It

is quite possible that Barbicane's calculations are exact, and that I

have lost my nine thousand dollars. But another hypothesis has come into

my mind, and it may cancel the wager."

"What is that?" asked Barbicane quickly.

"The supposition that for some reason or other the powder did not catch

fire, and we have not started."

"Good heavens! captain," cried Michel Ardan, "that is a supposition

worthy of me! It is not serious! Have we not been half stunned by the

shock? Did I not bring you back to life? Does not the president's

shoulder still bleed from the blow?"

"Agreed, Michel," replied Nicholl, "but allow me to ask one question."

"Ask it, captain."

"Did you hear the detonation, which must certainly have been

formidable?"

"No," answered Ardan, much surprised, "I certainly did not hear it."

"And you, Barbicane?"

"I did not either."

"What do you make of that?" asked Nicholl.

"What indeed!" murmured the president; "why did we not hear the

detonation?"

The three friends looked at one another rather disconcertedly. Here was

an inexplicable phenomenon. The projectile had been fired, however, and

there must have been a detonation.

"We must know first where we are," said Barbicane, "so let us open the

panel."

This simple operation was immediately accomplished. The screws that

fastened the bolts on the outer plates of the right-hand skylight

yielded to the coach-wrench. These bolts were driven outside, and

obturators wadded with indiarubber corked up the hole that let them

through. The exterior plate immediately fell back upon its hinges like a

port-hole, and the lenticular glass that covered the hole appeared. An

identical light-port had been made in the other side of the projectile,

another in the dome, and a fourth in the bottom. The firmament could

therefore be observed in four opposite directions--the firmament through

the lateral windows, and the earth or the moon more directly through the

upper or lower opening of the bullet.

Barbicane and his companions immediately rushed to the uncovered

port-hole. No ray of light illuminated it. Profound darkness surrounded

the projectile. This darkness did not prevent Barbicane exclaiming--

"No, my friends, we have not fallen on the earth again! No, we are not

immersed at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico! Yes, we are going up

through space! Look at those stars that are shining in the darkness, and

the impenetrable darkness that lies between the earth and us!"

"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Michel Ardan and Nicholl with one voice.

In fact, the thick darkness proved that the projectile had left the

earth, for the ground, then brilliantly lighted by the moon, would have

appeared before the eyes of the travellers if they had been resting upon

it. This darkness proved also that the projectile had passed beyond the

atmosphere, for the diffused light in the air would have been reflected

on the metallic sides of the projectile, which reflection was also

wanting. This light would have shone upon the glass of the light-port,

and that glass was in darkness. Doubt was no longer possible. The

travellers had quitted the earth.

"I have lost." said Nicholl.

"I congratulate you upon it," answered Ardan.

"Here are nine thousand dollars," said the captain, taking a bundle of

notes out of his pocket.

"Will you have a receipt?" asked Barbicane as he took the money.

"If you do not mind," answered Nicholl; "it is more regular."

And as seriously and phlegmatically as if he had been in his

counting-house, President Barbicane drew out his memorandum-book and

tore out a clear page, wrote a receipt in pencil, dated it, signed it,

and gave it to the captain, who put it carefully into his pocket-book.

Michel Ardan took off his hat and bowed to his two companions without

speaking a word. Such formality under such circumstances took away his

power of speech. He had never seen anything so American.

Once their business over, Barbicane and Nicholl went back to the

light-port and looked at the constellations. The stars stood out clearly

upon the dark background of the sky. But from this side the moon could

not be seen, as she moves from east to west, rising gradually to the

zenith. Her absence made Ardan say--

"And the moon? Is she going to fail us?"

"Do not frighten yourself," answered Barbicane, "Our spheroid is at her

post, but we cannot see her from this side. We must open the opposite

light-port."

At the very moment when Barbicane was going to abandon one window to set

clear the opposite one, his attention was attracted by the approach of a

shining object. It was an enormous disc the colossal dimensions of which

could not be estimated. Its face turned towards the earth was

brilliantly lighted. It looked like a small moon reflecting the light of

the large one. It advanced at prodigious speed, and seemed to describe

round the earth an orbit right across the passage of the projectile. To

the movement of translation of this object was added a movement of

rotation upon itself. It was therefore behaving like all celestial

bodies abandoned in space.

"Eh!" cried Michel Ardan. "Whatever is that? Another projectile?"

Barbicane did not answer. The apparition of this enormous body surprised

him and made him uneasy. A collision was possible which would have had

deplorable results, either by making the projectile deviate from its

route and fall back upon the earth, or be caught up by the attractive

power of the asteroid.

President Barbicane had rapidly seized the consequences of these three

hypotheses, which in one way or other would fatally prevent the success

of his attempt. His companions were silently watching the object, which

grew prodigiously larger as it approached, and through a certain optical

illusion it seemed as if the projectile were rushing upon it.

"Ye gods!" cried Michel Ardan; "there will be a collision on the line!"

The three travellers instinctively drew back. Their terror was extreme,

but it did not last long, hardly a few seconds. The asteroid passed at a

distance of a few hundred yards from the projectile and disappeared, not

so much on account of the rapidity of its course, but because its side

opposite to the moon was suddenly confounded with the absolute darkness

of space.

"A good journey to you!" cried Michel Ardan, uttering a sigh of

satisfaction. "Is not infinitude large enough to allow a poor little

bullet to go about without fear? What was that pretentious globe which

nearly knocked against us?"

"I know!" answered Barbicane.

"Of course! you know everything."

"It is a simple asteroid," said Barbicane; "but so large that the

attraction of the earth has kept it in the state of a satellite."

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Michel Ardan. "Then the earth has two moons

like Neptune?"

"Yes, my friend, two moons, though she is generally supposed to have but

one. But this second moon is so small and her speed so great that the

inhabitants of the earth cannot perceive her. It was by taking into

account certain perturbations that a French astronomer, M. Petit, was

able to determine the existence of this second satellite and calculate

its elements. According to his observations, this asteroid accomplishes

its revolution round the earth in three hours and twenty minutes only.

That implies prodigious speed."

"Do all astronomers admit the existence of this satellite?" asked

Nicholl.

"No," answered Barbicane; "but if they had met it like we have they

could not doubt any longer. By-the-bye, this asteroid, which would have

much embarrassed us had it knocked against us, allows us to determine

our position in space."

"How?" said Ardan.

"Because its distance is known, and where we met it we were exactly at

8,140 kilometres from the surface of the terrestrial globe."

"More than 2,000 leagues!" cried Michel Ardan. "That beats the express

trains of the pitiable globe called the earth!"

"I should think it did," answered Nicholl, consulting his

chronometer; "it is eleven o'clock, only thirteen minutes since we

left the American continent."

"Only thirteen minutes?" said Barbicane.

"That is all," answered Nicholl; "and if our initial velocity were

constant we should make nearly 10,000 leagues an hour."

"That is all very well, my friends," said the president; "but one

insoluble question still remains--why did we not hear the detonation of

the Columbiad?"

For want of an answer the conversation stopped, and Barbicane, still

reflecting, occupied himself with lowering the covering of the second

lateral light-port. His operation succeeded, and through the glass the

moon filled the interior of the projectile with brilliant light.

Nicholl, like an economical man, put out the gas that was thus rendered

useless, and the brilliance of which obstructed the observation of

planetary space.

The lunar disc then shone with incomparable purity. Her rays, no longer

filtered by the vapoury atmosphere of the terrestrial globe, shone

clearly through the glass and saturated the interior air of the

projectile with silvery reflections. The black curtain of the firmament

really doubled the brilliancy of the moon, which in this void of ether

unfavourable to diffusion did not eclipse the neighbouring stars. The

sky, thus seen, presented quite a different aspect--one that no human

eye could imagine.

It will be readily understood with what interest these audacious men

contemplated the moon, the supreme goal of their journey. The earth's

satellite, in her movement of translation, insensibly neared the zenith,

a mathematical point which she was to reach about ninety-six hours

later. Her mountains and plains, or any object in relief, were not seen

more plainly than from the earth; but her light across the void was

developed with incomparable intensity. The disc shone like a platinum

mirror. The travellers had already forgotten all about the earth which

was flying beneath their feet.

It was Captain Nicholl who first drew attention to the vanished globe.

"Yes!" answered Michel Ardan. "We must not be ungrateful to it. As we

are leaving our country let our last looks reach it. I want to see the

earth before it disappears completely from our eyes!"

Barbicane, to satisfy the desires of his companion, occupied himself

with clearing the window at the bottom of the projectile, the one

through which they could observe the earth directly. The movable floor

which the force of projection had sent to the bottom was taken to

pieces, not without difficulty; its pieces, carefully placed against the

sides, might still be of use. Then appeared a circular bay window, half

a yard wide, cut in the lower part of the bullet. It was filled with

glass five inches thick, strengthened with brass settings. Under it was

an aluminium plate, held down by bolts. The screws taken out and the

bolts withdrawn, the plate fell back, and visual communication was

established between interior and exterior.

Michel Ardan knelt upon the glass. It was dark, and seemed opaque.

"Well," cried he, "but where's the earth?"

"There it is," said Barbicane.

"What!" cried Ardan, "that thin streak, that silvery crescent?"

"Certainly, Michel. In four days' time, when the moon is full, at the

very minute we shall reach her, the earth will be new. She will only

appear to us under the form of a slender crescent, which will soon

disappear, and then she will be buried for some days in impenetrable

darkness."

"That the earth!" repeated Michel Ardan, staring at the thin slice of

his natal planet.

The explanation given by President Barbicane was correct. The earth,

looked at from the projectile, was entering her last quarter. She was in

her octant, and her crescent was clearly outlined on the dark background

of the sky. Her light, made bluish by the thickness of her atmosphere,

was less intense than that of the lunar crescent. This crescent then

showed itself under considerable dimensions. It looked like an enormous

arch stretched across the firmament. Some points, more vividly lighted,

especially in its concave part, announced the presence of high

mountains; but they disappeared sometimes under black spots, which are

never seen on the surface of the lunar disc. They were rings of clouds

placed concentrically round the terrestrial spheroid.

However, by dint of a natural phenomenon, identical with that produced

on the moon when she is in her octants, the contour of the terrestrial

globe could be traced. Its entire disc appeared slightly visible through

an effect of pale light, less appreciable than that of the moon. The

reason of this lessened intensity is easy to understand. When this

reflection is produced on the moon it is caused by the solar rays which

the earth reflects upon her satellite. Here it was caused by the solar

rays reflected from the moon upon the earth. Now terrestrial light is

thirteen times more intense than lunar light on account of the

difference of volume in the two bodies. Hence it follows that in the

phenomenon of the pale light the dark part of the earth's disc is less

clearly outlined than that of the moon's disc, because the intensity of

the phenomenon is in proportion to the lighting power of the two stars.

It must be added that the terrestrial crescent seems to form a more

elongated curve than that of the disc--a pure effect of irradiation.

Whilst the travellers were trying to pierce the profound darkness of

space, a brilliant shower of falling stars shone before their eyes.

Hundreds of meteors, inflamed by contact with the atmosphere, streaked

the darkness with luminous trails, and lined the cloudy part of the disc

with their fire. At that epoch the earth was in her perihelion, and the

month of December is so propitious to these shooting stars that

astronomers have counted as many as 24,000 an hour. But Michel Ardan,

disdaining scientific reasoning, preferred to believe that the earth was

saluting with her finest fireworks the departure of her three children.

This was all they saw of the globe lost in the darkness, an inferior

star of the solar world, which for the grand planets rises or sets as a

simple morning or evening star! Imperceptible point in space, it was now

only a fugitive crescent, this globe where they had left all their

affections.

For a long time the three friends, not speaking, yet united in heart,

watched while the projectile went on with uniformly decreasing velocity.

Then irresistible sleep took possession of them. Was it fatigue of body

and mind? Doubtless, for after the excitement of the last hours passed

upon earth, reaction must inevitably set in.

"Well," said Michel, "as we must sleep, let us go to sleep."

Stretched upon their beds, all three were soon buried in profound

slumber.

But they had not been unconscious for more than a quarter of an hour

when Barbicane suddenly rose, and, waking his companions, in a loud

voice cried--

"I've found it!"

"What have you found?" asked Michel Ardan, jumping out of bed.

"The reason we did not hear the detonation of the Columbiad!"

"Well?" said Nicholl.

"It was because our projectile went quicker than sound."

CHAPTER III - TAKING POSSESSION.

This curious but certainly correct explanation once given, the three

friends fell again into a profound sleep. Where would they have found a

calmer or more peaceful place to sleep in? Upon earth, houses in the

town or cottages in the country feel every shock upon the surface of the

globe. At sea, ships, rocked by the waves, are in perpetual movement. In

the air, balloons incessantly oscillate upon the fluid strata of

different densities. This projectile alone, travelling in absolute void

amidst absolute silence, offered absolute repose to its inhabitants.

The sleep of the three adventurers would have, perhaps, been

indefinitely prolonged if an unexpected noise had not awakened them

about 7 a.m. on the 2nd of December, eight hours after their departure.

This noise was a very distinct bark.

"The dogs! It is the dogs!" cried Michel Ardan, getting up immediately.

"They are hungry," said Nicholl.

"I should think so," answered Michel; "we have forgotten them."

"Where are they?" asked Barbicane.

One of the animals was found cowering under the divan. Terrified and

stunned by the first shock, it had remained in a corner until the moment

it had recovered its voice along with the feeling of hunger.

It was Diana, still rather sheepish, that came from the retreat, not

without urging. Michel Ardan encouraged her with his most gracious

words.

"Come, Diana," he said--"come, my child; your destiny will be noted in

cynegetic annals! Pagans would have made you companion to the god

Anubis, and Christians friend to St. Roch! You are worthy of being

carved in bronze for the king of hell, like the puppy that Jupiter gave

beautiful Europa as the price of a kiss! Your celebrity will efface that

of the Montargis and St. Bernard heroes. You are rushing through

interplanetary space, and will, perhaps, be the Eve of Selenite dogs!

You will justify up there Toussenel's saying, 'In the beginning God

created man, and seeing how weak he was, gave him the dog!' Come, Diana,

come here!"

Diana, whether flattered or not, came out slowly, uttering plaintive

moans.

"Good!" said Barbicane. "I see Eve, but where is Adam?"

"Adam," answered Michel Ardan, "can't be far off. He is here somewhere.

He must be called! Satellite! here, Satellite!"

But Satellite did not appear. Diana continued moaning. It was decided,

however, that she was not wounded, and an appetising dish was set before

her to stop her complaining.

As to Satellite, he seemed lost. They were obliged to search a long time

before discovering him in one of the upper compartments of the

projectile, where a rather inexplicable rebound had hurled him

violently. The poor animal was in a pitiable condition.

"The devil!" said Michel. "Our acclimatisation is in danger!"

The unfortunate dog was carefully lowered. His head had been fractured

against the roof, and it seemed difficult for him to survive such a

shock. Nevertheless, he was comfortably stretched on a cushion, where he

sighed once.

"We will take care of you," said Michel; "we are responsible for your

existence. I would rather lose an arm than a paw of my poor Satellite."

So saying he offered some water to the wounded animal, who drank it

greedily.

These attentions bestowed, the travellers attentively watched the earth

and the moon. The earth only appeared like a pale disc terminated by a

crescent smaller than that of the previous evening, but its volume

compared with that of the moon, which was gradually forming a perfect

circle, remained enormous.

"Parbleu!" then said Michel Ardan; "I am really sorry we did not start

when the earth was at her full--that is to say, when our globe was in

opposition to the sun!"

"Why?" asked Nicholl.

"Because we should have seen our continents and seas under a new

aspect--the continents shining under the solar rays, the seas darker,

like they figure upon certain maps of the world! I should like to have

seen those poles of the earth upon which the eye of man has never yet

rested!"

"I daresay," answered Barbicane, "but if the earth had been full the

moon would have been new--that is to say, invisible amidst the

irradiation of the sun. It is better for us to see the goal we want to

reach than the place we started from."

"You are right, Barbicane," answered Captain Nicholl; "and besides, when

we have reached the moon we shall have plenty of time during the long

lunar nights to consider at leisure the globe that harbours men like

us."

"Men like us!" cried Michel Ardan. "But now they are not more like us

than the Selenites. We are inhabitants of a new world peopled by us

alone--the projectile! I am a man like Barbicane, and Barbicane is a man

like Nicholl. Beyond us and outside of us humanity ends, and we are the

only population of this microcosm until the moment we become simple

Selenites."

"In about eighty-eight hours," replied the captain.

"Which means?" asked Michel Ardan.

"That it is half-past eight," answered Nicholl.

"Very well," answered Michel, "I fail to find the shadow of a reason why

we should not breakfast illico."

In fact, the inhabitants of the new star could not live in it without

eating, and their stomachs then submitted to the imperious laws of

hunger. Michel Ardan, in his quality of Frenchman, declared himself

chief cook, an important function that no one disputed with him. The gas

gave the necessary degrees of heat for cooking purposes, and the

provision-locker furnished the elements of this first banquet.

The breakfast began with three cups of excellent broth, due to the

liquefaction in hot water of three precious Liebig tablets, prepared

from the choicest morsels of the Pampas ruminants. Some slices of

beefsteak succeeded them, compressed by the hydraulic press, as tender

and succulent as if they had just come from the butchers of the Paris

Café Anglais. Michel, an imaginative man, would have it they were even

rosy.

Preserved vegetables, "fresher than the natural ones," as the amiable

Michel observed, succeeded the meat, and were followed by some cups of

tea and slices of bread and butter, American fashion. This beverage,

pronounced excellent, was made from tea of the first quality, of which

the Emperor of Russia had put some cases at the disposition of the

travellers.

Lastly, as a worthy ending to the meal, Ardan ferreted out a fine bottle

of "Nuits" burgundy that "happened" to be in the provision compartment.

The three friends drank it to the union of the earth and her satellite.

And as if the generous wine it had distilled upon the hill-sides of

Burgundy were not enough, the sun was determined to help in the feast.

The projectile at that moment emerged from the cone of shadow cast by

the terrestrial globe, and the sun's rays fell directly upon the lower

disc of the bullet, on account of the angle which the orbit of the moon

makes with that of the earth.

"The sun!" exclaimed Michel Ardan.

"Of course," answered Barbicane; "I expected it."

"But," said Michel, "the cone of shadow thrown by the earth into space

extends beyond the moon."

"Much beyond if you do not take the atmospheric refraction into

account," said Barbicane. "But when the moon is enveloped in that shadow

the centres of the three heavenly bodies--the sun, the earth, and the

moon--are in a straight line. Then the nodes coincide with the full moon

and there is an eclipse. If, therefore, we had started during an eclipse

of the moon all our journey would have been accomplished in the dark,

which would have been a pity."

"Why?"

"Because, although we are journeying in the void, our projectile, bathed

in the solar rays, will gather their light and heat; therefore there

will be economy of gas, a precious economy in every way."

In fact, under these rays, the temperature and brilliancy of which there

was no atmosphere to soften, the projectile was lighted and warmed as if

it had suddenly passed from winter to summer. The moon above and the sun

below inundated it with their rays.

"It is pleasant here now," said Nicholl.

"I believe you!" cried Michel Ardan. "With a little vegetable soil

spread over our aluminium planet we could grow green peas in twenty-four

hours. I have only one fear, that is that the walls of our bullet will

melt."

"You need not alarm yourself, my worthy friend," answered Barbicane.

"The projectile supported a much higher temperature while it was

travelling through the atmosphere. I should not even wonder if it looked

to the eyes of the spectators like a fiery meteor."

"Then J.T. Maston must think we are roasted!"

"What I am astonished at," answered Barbicane, "is that we are not. It

was a danger we did not foresee."

"I feared it," answered Nicholl simply.

"And you did not say anything about it, sublime captain!" cried Michel

Ardan, shaking his companion's hand.

In the meantime Barbicane was making his arrangements in the projectile

as though he was never going to leave it. It will be remembered that the

base of the aërial vehicle was fifty-four feet square. It was twelve

feet high, and admirably fitted up in the interior. It was not much

encumbered by the instruments and travelling utensils, which were all in

special places, and it left some liberty of movement to its three

inhabitants. The thick glass let into a part of the floor could bear

considerable weight with impunity. Barbicane and his companions walked

upon it as well as upon a solid floor; but the sun, which struck it

directly with its rays, lighting the interior of the projectile from

below, produced singular effects of light.

They began by examining the state of the water and provision

receptacles. They were not in the least damaged, thanks to the

precautions taken to deaden the shock. The provisions were abundant, and

sufficient for one year's food. Barbicane took this precaution in case

the projectile should arrive upon an absolutely barren part of the moon.

There was only enough water and brandy for two months. But according to

the latest observations of astronomers, the moon had a dense low and

thick atmosphere, at least in its deepest valleys, and there streams and

watercourses could not fail. Therefore the adventurous explorers would

not suffer from hunger or thirst during the journey, and the first year

of their installation upon the lunar continent.

The question of air in the interior of the projectile also offered all

security. The Reiset and Regnault apparatus, destined to produce oxygen,

was furnished with enough chlorate of potash for two months. It

necessarily consumed a large quantity of gas, for it was obliged to keep

the productive matter up to 100°. But there was abundance of that also.

The apparatus wanted little looking after. It worked automatically. At

that high temperature the chlorate of potash changed into chlorine of

potassium, and gave out all the oxygen it contained. The eighteen pounds

of chlorate of potash gave out the seven pounds of oxygen necessary for

the daily consumption of the three travellers.

But it was not enough to renew the oxygen consumed; the carbonic acid

gas produced by expiration must also be absorbed. Now for the last

twelve hours the atmosphere of the bullet had become loaded with this

deleterious gas, the product of the combustion of the elements of blood

by the oxygen taken into the lungs. Nicholl perceived this state of the

air by seeing Diana palpitate painfully. In fact, carbonic acid

gas--through a phenomenon identical with the one to be noticed in the

famous Dog's Grotto--accumulated at the bottom of the projectile by

reason of its weight. Poor Diana, whose head was low down, therefore

necessarily suffered from it before her masters. But Captain Nicholl

made haste to remedy this state of things. He placed on the floor of the

projectile several receptacles containing caustic potash which he shook

about for some time, and this matter, which is very greedy of carbonic

acid, completely absorbed it, and thus purified the interior air.

An inventory of the instruments was then begun. The thermometers and

barometers were undamaged, with the exception of a minimum thermometer

the glass of which was broken. An excellent aneroid was taken out of

its padded box and hung upon the wall. Of course it was only acted upon

by and indicated the pressure of the air inside the projectile; but it

also indicated the quantity of moisture it contained. At that moment its

needle oscillated between 25.24 and 25.08. It was at "set fair."

Barbicane had brought several compasses, which were found intact. It

will be easily understood that under those circumstances their needles

were acting at random, without any constant direction. In fact, at the

distance the projectile was from the earth the magnetic pole could not

exercise any sensible action upon the apparatus. But these compasses,

taken upon the lunar disc, might show particular phenomena. In any case

it would be interesting to verify whether the earth's satellite, like

the earth herself, submitted to magnetical influence.

A hypsometer to measure the altitude of the lunar mountains, a sextant

to take the height of the sun, a theodolite, an instrument for

surveying, telescopes to be used as the moon approached--all these

instruments were carefully inspected and found in good condition,

notwithstanding the violence of the initial shock.

As to the utensils--pickaxes, spades, and different tools--of which

Nicholl had made a special collection, the sacks of various kinds of

grain, and the shrubs which Michel Ardan counted upon transplanting into

Selenite soil, they were in their places in the upper corners of the

projectile. There was made a sort of granary, which the prodigal

Frenchman had filled. What was in it was very little known, and the

merry fellow did not enlighten anybody. From time to time he climbed up

the cramp-irons riveted in the walls to this store-room, the inspection

of which he had reserved to himself. He arranged and re-arranged,

plunged his hand rapidly into certain mysterious boxes, singing all the

time in a voice very out of tune some old French song to enliven the

situation.

Barbicane noticed with interest that his rockets and other fireworks

were not damaged. These were important, for, powerfully loaded, they

were meant to slacken the speed with which the projectile would, when

attracted by the moon after passing the point of neutral attraction,

fall upon her surface. This fall besides would be six times less rapid

than it would have been upon the surface of the earth, thanks to the

difference of volume in the two bodies.

The inspection ended, therefore, in general satisfaction. Then they all

returned to their posts of observation at the lateral and lower

port-lights.

The same spectacle was spread before them. All the extent of the

celestial sphere swarmed with stars and constellations of marvellous

brilliancy, enough to make an astronomer wild! On one side the sun, like

the mouth of a fiery furnace, shone upon the dark background of the

heavens. On the other side the moon, reflecting back his fires, seemed

motionless amidst the starry world. Then a large spot, like a hole in

the firmament, bordered still by a slight thread of silver--it was the

earth. Here and there nebulous masses like large snow-flakes, and from

zenith to nadir an immense ring, formed of an impalpable dust of

stars--that milky way amidst which the sun only counts as a star of the

fourth magnitude!

The spectators could not take their eyes off a spectacle so new, of

which no description could give any idea. What reflections it suggested!

What unknown emotions it aroused in the soul! Barbicane wished to begin

the recital of his journey under the empire of these impressions, and he

noted down hourly all the events that signalised the beginning of his

enterprise. He wrote tranquilly in his large and rather

commercial-looking handwriting.

During that time the calculating Nicholl looked over the formulae of

trajectories, and worked away at figures with unparalleled dexterity.

Michel Ardan talked sometimes to Barbicane, who did not answer much, to

Nicholl, who did not hear, and to Diana, who did not understand his

theories, and lastly to himself, making questions and answers, going and

coming, occupying himself with a thousand details, sometimes leaning

over the lower port-light, sometimes roosting in the heights of the

projectile, singing all the time. In this microcosm he represented the

French agitation and loquacity, and it was worthily represented.

The day, or rather--for the expression is not correct--the lapse of

twelve hours which makes a day upon earth--was ended by a copious supper

carefully prepared. No incident of a nature to shake the confidence of

the travellers had happened, so, full of hope and already sure of

success, they went to sleep peacefully, whilst the projectile, at a

uniformly increasing speed, made its way in the heavens.

CHAPTER IV - A LITTLE ALGEBRA.

The night passed without incident. Correctly speaking, the word "night"

is an improper one. The position of the projectile in regard to the sun

did not change. Astronomically it was day on the bottom of the bullet,

and night on the top. When, therefore, in this recital these two words

are used they express the lapse of time between the rising and setting

of the sun upon earth.

The travellers' sleep was so much the more peaceful because,

notwithstanding its excessive speed, the projectile seemed absolutely

motionless. No movement indicated its journey through space. However

rapidly change of place may be effected, it cannot produce any sensible

effect upon the organism when it takes place in the void, or when the

mass of air circulates along with the travelling body. What inhabitant

of the earth perceives the speed which carries him along at the rate of

68,000 miles an hour? Movement under such circumstances is not felt more

than repose. Every object is indifferent to it. When a body is in repose

it remains so until some foreign force puts it in movement. When in

movement it would never stop if some obstacle were not in its road. This

indifference to movement or repose is inertia.

Barbicane and his companions could, therefore, imagine themselves

absolutely motionless, shut up in the interior of the projectile. The

effect would have been the same if they had placed themselves on the

outside. Without the moon, which grew larger above them, and the earth

that grew smaller below, they would have sworn they were suspended in a

complete stagnation.

That morning, the 3rd of December, they were awakened by a joyful but

unexpected noise. It was the crowing of a cock in the interior of their

vehicle.

Michel Ardan was the first to get up; he climbed to the top of the

projectile and closed a partly-open case.

"Be quiet," said he in a whisper. "That animal will spoil my plan!"

In the meantime Nicholl and Barbicane awoke.

"Was that a cock?" said Nicholl.

"No, my friends," answered Michel quickly. "I wished to awake you with

that rural sound."

So saying he gave vent to a cock-a-doodle-do which would have done

honour to the proudest of gallinaceans.

The two Americans could not help laughing.

"A fine accomplishment that," said Nicholl, looking suspiciously at his

companion.

"Yes," answered Michel, "a joke common in my country. It is very Gallic.

We perpetrate it in the best society."

Then turning the conversation--

"Barbicane, do you know what I have been thinking about all night?"

"No," answered the president.

"About our friends at Cambridge. You have already remarked how

admirably ignorant I am of mathematics. I find it, therefore, impossible

to guess how our savants of the observatory could calculate what

initial velocity the projectile ought to be endowed with on leaving the

Columbiad in order to reach the moon."

"You mean," replied Barbicane, "in order to reach that neutral point

where the terrestrial and lunar attractions are equal; for beyond this

point, situated at about 0.9 of the distance, the projectile will fall

upon the moon by virtue of its own weight merely."

"Very well," answered Michel; "but once more; how did they calculate the

initial velocity?"

"Nothing is easier," said Barbicane.

"And could you have made the calculation yourself?" asked Michel Ardan.

"Certainly; Nicholl and I could have determined it if the notice from

the observatory had not saved us the trouble."

"Well, old fellow," answered Michel, "they might sooner cut off my head,

beginning with my feet, than have made me solve that problem!"

"Because you do not know algebra," replied Barbicane tranquilly.

"Ah, that's just like you dealers in x! You think you have explained

everything when you have said 'algebra.'"

"Michel," replied Barbicane, "do you think it possible to forge without

a hammer, or to plough without a ploughshare?"

"It would be difficult."

"Well, then, algebra is a tool like a plough or a hammer, and a good

tool for any one who knows how to use it."

"Seriously?"

"Quite."

"Could you use that tool before me?"

"If it would interest you."

"And could you show me how they calculated the initial speed of our

vehicle?"

"Yes, my worthy friend. By taking into account all the elements of the

problem, the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the

moon, of the radius of the earth, the volume of the earth and the volume

of the moon, I can determine exactly what the initial speed of the

projectile ought to be, and that by a very simple formula."

"Show me the formula."

"You shall see it. Only I will not give you the curve really traced by

the bullet between the earth and the moon, by taking into account their

movement of translation round the sun. No. I will consider both bodies

to be motionless, and that will be sufficient for us."

"Why?"

"Because that would be seeking to solve the problem called 'the problem

of the three bodies,' for which the integral calculus is not yet far

enough advanced."

"Indeed," said Michel Ardan in a bantering tone; "then mathematics have

not said their last word."

"Certainly not," answered Barbicane.

"Good! Perhaps the Selenites have pushed the integral calculus further

than you! By-the-bye, what is the integral calculus?"

"It is the inverse of the differential calculus," answered Barbicane

seriously.

"Much obliged."

"To speak otherwise, it is a calculus by which you seek finished

quantities of what you know the differential quantities."

"That is clear at least," answered Barbicane with a quite satisfied air.

"And now," continued Barbicane, "for a piece of paper and a pencil, and

in half-an-hour I will have found the required formula."

That said, Barbicane became absorbed in his work, whilst Nicholl looked

into space, leaving the care of preparing breakfast to his companion.

Half-an-hour had not elapsed before Barbicane, raising his head, showed

Michel Ardan a page covered with algebraical signs, amidst which the

following general formula was discernible:--

1   2   2          r         m'    r     r

- (v - v ) = gr { --- - 1 + --- ( --- - ---) }

2       0          x         m    d-x   d-r

"And what does that mean?" asked Michel.

"That means," answered Nicholl, "that the half of v minus v zero

square equals gr multiplied by r upon x minus 1 plus m prime

upon m multiplied by r upon d minus x, minus r upon d minus

x minus r--"

"X upon y galloping upon z and rearing upon p" cried Michel

Ardan, bursting out laughing. "Do you mean to say you understand that,

captain?"

"Nothing is clearer."

"Then," said Michel Ardan, "it is as plain as a pikestaff, and I want

nothing more."

"Everlasting laugher," said Barbicane, "you wanted algebra, and now you

shall have it over head and ears."

"I would rather be hung!"

"That appears a good solution, Barbicane," said Nicholl, who was

examining the formula like a connaisseur. "It is the integral of the

equation of 'vis viva,' and I do not doubt that it will give us the

desired result."

"But I should like to understand!" exclaimed Michel. "I would give ten

years of Nicholl's life to understand!"

"Then listen," resumed Barbicane. "The half of v minus v zero square

is the formula that gives us the demi-variation of the 'vis viva.'"

"Good; and does Nicholl understand what that means?"

"Certainly, Michel," answered the captain. "All those signs that look so

cabalistic to you form the clearest and most logical language for those

who know how to read it."

"And do you pretend, Nicholl," asked Michel, "that by means of these

hieroglyphics, more incomprehensible than the Egyptian ibis, you can

find the initial speed necessary to give to the projectile?"

"Incontestably," answered Nicholl; "and even by that formula I could

always tell you what speed it is going at on any point of the journey."

"Upon your word of honour?"

"Yes."

"Then you are as clever as our president."

"No, Michel, all the difficulty consists in what Barbicane has done. It

is to establish an equation which takes into account all the conditions

of the problem. The rest is only a question of arithmetic, and requires

nothing but a knowledge of the four rules."

"That's something," answered Michel Ardan, who had never been able to

make a correct addition in his life, and who thus defined the rule: "A

Chinese puzzle, by which you can obtain infinitely various results."

Still Barbicane answered that Nicholl would certainly have found the

formula had he thought about it.

"I do not know if I should," said Nicholl, "for the more I study it the

more marvellously correct I find it."

"Now listen," said Barbicane to his ignorant comrade, "and you will see

that all these letters have a signification."

"I am listening," said Michel, looking resigned.

"d," said Barbicane, "is the distance from the centre of the earth to

the centre of the moon, for we must take the centres to calculate the

attraction."

"That I understand."

"r is the radius of the earth."

"r, radius; admitted."

"m is the volume of the earth; m prime that of the moon. We are

obliged to take into account the volume of the two attracting bodies, as

the attraction is in proportion to the volume."

"I understand that."

"g represents gravity, the speed acquired at the end of a second by a

body falling on the surface of the earth. Is that clear?"

"A mountain stream!" answered Michel.

"Now I represent by x the variable distance that separates the

projectile from the centre of the earth, and by v the velocity the

projectile has at that distance."

"Good."

"Lastly, the expression v zero which figures in the equation is the

speed the bullet possesses when it emerges from the atmosphere."

"Yes," said Nicholl, "you were obliged to calculate the velocity from

that point, because we knew before that the velocity at departure is

exactly equal to 3/2 of the velocity upon emerging from the atmosphere."

"Don't understand any more!" said Michel.

"Yet it is very simple," said Barbicane.

"I do not find it very simple," replied Michel.

"It means that when our projectile reached the limit of the terrestrial

atmosphere it had already lost one-third of its initial velocity."

"As much as that?"

"Yes, my friend, simply by friction against the atmosphere. You will

easily understand that the greater its speed the more resistance it

would meet with from the air."

"That I admit," answered Michel, "and I understand it, although your v

zero two and your v zero square shake about in my head like nails in a

sack."

"First effect of algebra," continued Barbicane. "And now to finish we

are going to find the numerical known quantity of these different

expressions--that is to say, find out their value."

"You will finish me first!" answered Michel.

"Some of these expressions," said Barbicane, "are known; the others have

to be calculated."

"I will calculate those," said Nicholl.

"And r," resumed Barbicane, "r is the radius of the earth under the

latitude of Florida, our point of departure, d--that is to say, the

distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon equals

fifty-six terrestrial radii--"

Nicholl rapidly calculated.

"That makes 356,720,000 metres when the moon is at her perigee--that is

to say, when she is nearest to the earth."

"Very well," said Barbicane, "now m prime upon m--that is to say,

the proportion of the moon's volume to that of the earth equals 1/81."

"Perfect," said Michel.

"And g, the gravity, is to Florida 9-1/81 metres. From whence it

results that gr equals--"

"Sixty-two million four hundred and twenty-six thousand square metres,"

answered Nicholl.

"What next?" asked Michel Ardan.

"Now that the expressions are reduced to figures, I am going to find the

velocity v zero--that is to say, the velocity that the projectile

ought to have on leaving the atmosphere to reach the point of equal

attraction with no velocity. The velocity at that point I make equal

zero, and x, the distance where the neutral point is, will be

represented by the nine-tenths of d--that is to say, the distance that

separates the two centres."

"I have some vague idea that it ought to be so," said Michel.

"I shall then have, x equals nine-tenths of d, and v equals

zero, and my formula will become--"

Barbicane wrote rapidly on the paper--

2              10r   1    10r    r

v  = 2 gr { 1 - ---  --- ( --- - ---) }

0               9d   81    d    d-r

Nicholl read it quickly.

"That's it! that is it!" he cried.

"Is it clear?" asked Barbicane.

"It is written in letters of fire!" answered Nicholl.

"Clever fellows!" murmured Michel.

"Do you understand now?" asked Barbicane.

"If I understand!" cried Michel Ardan. "My head is bursting with it."

"Thus," resumed Barbicane, "v zero square equals 2 gr multiplied by

1 minus 10 r upon 9 d minus 1/81 multiplied by 10 r upon d minus

r upon d minus r."

"And now," said Nicholl, "in order to obtain the velocity of the bullet

as it emerges from the atmosphere I have only to calculate."

The captain, like a man used to overcome all difficulties, began to

calculate with frightful rapidity. Divisions and multiplications grew

under his fingers. Figures dotted the page. Barbicane followed him with

his eyes, whilst Michel Ardan compressed a coming headache with his two

hands.

"Well, what do you make it?" asked Barbicane after several minutes'

silence.

"I make it 11,051 metres in the first second."

"What do you say?" said Barbicane, starting.

"Eleven thousand and fifty-one metres."

"Malediction!" cried the president with a gesture of despair.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Michel Ardan, much surprised.

"The matter! why if at this moment the velocity was already diminished

one-third by friction, the initial speed ought to have been--"

"Sixteen thousand five hundred and seventy-six metres!" answered

Nicholl.

"But the Cambridge Observatory declared that 11,000 metres were enough

at departure, and our bullet started with that velocity only!"

"Well?" asked Nicholl.

"Why it was not enough!"

"No."

"We shall not reach the neutral point."

"The devil!"

"We shall not even go half way!"

"Nom d'un boulet!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, jumping up as if the

projectile were on the point of striking against the terrestrial globe.

"And we shall fall back upon the earth!"

CHAPTER V - THE TEMPERATURE OF SPACE.

This revelation acted like a thunderbolt. Who could have expected such

an error in calculation? Barbicane would not believe it. Nicholl went

over the figures again. They were correct. The formula which had

established them could not be mistrusted, and, when verified, the

initial velocity of 16,576 metres, necessary for attaining the neutral

point, was found quite right.

The three friends looked at one another in silence. No one thought about

breakfast after that. Barbicane, with set teeth, contracted brow, and

fists convulsively closed, looked through the port-light. Nicholl

folded his arms and examined his calculations. Michel Ardan murmured--

"That's just like savants! That's the way they always do! I would give

twenty pistoles to fall upon the Cambridge Observatory and crush it,

with all its stupid staff inside!"

All at once the captain made a reflection which struck Barbicane at

once.

"Why," said he, "it is seven o'clock in the morning, so we have been

thirty-two hours on the road. We have come more than half way, and we

are not falling yet that I know of!"

Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at the captain he

took a compass, which he used to measure the angular distance of the

terrestrial globe. Then through the lower port-light he made a very

exact observation from the apparent immobility of the projectile. Then

rising and wiping the perspiration from his brow, he put down some

figures upon paper. Nicholl saw that the president wished to find out

from the length of the terrestrial diameter the distance of the bullet

from the earth. He looked at him anxiously.

"No!" cried Barbicane in a few minutes' time, "we are not falling! We

are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth! We have passed the

point the projectile ought to have stopped at if its speed had been only

11,000 metres at our departure! We are still ascending!"

"That is evident," answered Nicholl; "so we must conclude that our

initial velocity, under the propulsion of the 400,000 lbs. of

gun-cotton, was greater than the 11,000 metres. I can now explain to

myself why we met with the second satellite, that gravitates at more

than 2,000 leagues from the earth, in less than thirteen minutes."

"That explanation is so much the more probable," added Barbicane,

"because by throwing out the water in our movable partitions the

projectile was made considerably lighter all at once."

"That is true," said Nicholl.

"Ah, my brave Nicholl," cried Barbicane, "we are saved!"

"Very well then," answered Michel Ardan tranquilly, "as we are saved,

let us have breakfast."

Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had happily been greater

than that indicated by the Cambridge Observatory, but the Cambridge

Observatory had no less been mistaken.

The travellers, recovered from their false alarm, sat down to table and

breakfasted merrily. Though they ate much they talked more. Their

confidence was greater after the "algebra incident."

"Why should we not succeed?" repeated Michel Ardan. "Why should we not

arrive? We are on the road; there are no obstacles before us, and no

stones on our route. It is free--freer than that of a ship that has to

struggle with the sea, or a balloon with the wind against it! Now if a

ship can go where it pleases, or a balloon ascend where it pleases, why

should not our projectile reach the goal it was aimed at?"

"It will reach it," said Barbicane.

"If only to honour the American nation," added Michel Ardan, "the only

nation capable of making such an enterprise succeed--the only one that

could have produced a President Barbicane! Ah! now I think of it, now

that all our anxieties are over, what will become of us? We shall be as

dull as stagnant water."

Barbicane and Nicholl made gestures of repudiation.

"But I foresaw this, my friends," resumed Michel Ardan. "You have only

to say the word. I have chess, backgammon, cards, and dominoes at your

disposition. We only want a billiard-table!"

"What?" asked Barbicane, "did you bring such trifles as those?"

"Certainly," answered Michel; "not only for our amusement, but also in

the praiseworthy intention of bestowing them upon Selenite inns."

"My friend," said Barbicane, "if the moon is inhabited its inhabitants

appeared some thousands of years before those of the earth, for it

cannot be doubted that the moon is older than the earth. If, therefore,

the Selenites have existed for thousands of centuries--if their brains

are organised like that of human beings--they have invented all that we

have invented, already, and even what we shall only invent in the lapse

of centuries. They will have nothing to learn from us, and we shall have

everything to learn from them."

"What!" answered Michel, "do you think they have had artists like

Phidias, Michael Angelo, or Raphael?"

"Yes."

"Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?"

"I am sure of it."

"Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant?"

"I have no doubt of it."

"Savants like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, and Newton?"

"I could swear it."

"Clowns like Arnal, and photographers like--Nadar?"

"I am certain of it."

"Then, friend Barbicane, if these Selenites are as learned as we, and

even more so, why have they not hurled a lunar projectile as far as the

terrestrial regions?"

"Who says they have not done it?" answered Barbicane seriously.

"In fact," added Nicholl, "it would have been easier to them than to us,

and that for two reasons--the first because the attraction is six times

less on the surface of the moon than on the surface of the earth, which

would allow a projectile to go up more easily; secondly the projectile

would only have 8,000 leagues to travel instead of 80,000, which would

require a force of propulsion ten times less."

"Then," resumed Michel, "I repeat--why have they not done it?"

"And I," replied Barbicane, "I repeat--who says they have not done it?"

"When?"

"Hundreds of centuries ago, before man's appearance upon earth."

"And the bullet? Where is the bullet? I ask to see the bullet!"

"My friend," answered Barbicane, "the sea covers five-sixths of our

globe, hence there are five good reasons for supposing that the lunar

projectile, if it has been fired, is now submerged at the bottom of the

Atlantic or Pacific, unless it was buried down some abyss at the epoch

when the earth's crust was not sufficiently formed."

"Old fellow," answered Michel, "you have an answer to everything, and I

bow before your wisdom. There is one hypothesis I would rather believe

than the others, and that is that the Selenites being older than we are

wiser, and have not invented gunpowder at all."

At that moment Diana claimed her share in the conversation by a sonorous

bark. She asked for her breakfast.

"Ah!" said Michel Ardan, "our arguments make us forget Diana and

Satellite!"

A good dish of food was immediately offered to the dog, who devoured it

with great appetite.

"Do you know, Barbicane," said Michel, "we ought to have made this

projectile a sort of Noah's Ark, and have taken a couple of all the

domestic animals with us to the moon."

"No doubt," answered Barbicane, "but we should not have had room

enough."

"Oh, we might have been packed a little tighter!"

"The fact is," answered Nicholl, "that oxen, cows, bulls, and horses,

all those ruminants would be useful on the lunar continent.

Unfortunately we cannot make our projectile either a stable or a

cowshed."

"But at least," said Michel Ardan, "we might have brought an ass,

nothing but a little ass, the courageous and patient animal old Silenus

loved to exhibit. I am fond of those poor asses! They are the least

favoured animals in creation. They are not only beaten during their

lifetime, but are still beaten after their death!"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Barbicane.

"Why, don't they use his skin to make drums of?"

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this absurd reflection.

But a cry from their merry companion stopped them; he was bending over

Satellite's niche, and rose up saying--

"Good! Satellite is no longer ill."

"Ah!" said Nicholl.

"No!" resumed Michel, "he is dead. Now," he added in a pitiful tone,

"this will be embarrassing! I very much fear, poor Diana, that you will

not leave any of your race in the lunar regions!"

The unfortunate Satellite had not been able to survive his wounds. He

was dead, stone dead. Michel Ardan, much put out of countenance, looked

at his friends.

"This makes another difficulty," said Barbicane. "We can't keep the dead

body of this dog with us for another eight-and-forty hours."

"No, certainly not," answered Nicholl, "but our port-lights are hung

upon hinges. They can be let down. We will open one of them, and throw

the body into space."

The president reflected for a few minutes, and then said--

"Yes, that is what we must do, but we must take the most minute

precautions."

"Why?" asked Michel.

"For two reasons that I will explain to you," answered Barbicane. "The

first has reference to the air in the projectile, of which we must lose

as little as possible."

"But we can renew the air!"

"Not entirely. We can only renew the oxygen, Michel; and, by-the-bye, we

must be careful that the apparatus do not furnish us with this oxygen in

an immoderate quantity, for an excess of it would cause grave

physiological consequences. But although we can renew the oxygen we

cannot renew the azote, that medium which the lungs do not absorb, and

which ought to remain intact. Now the azote would rapidly escape if the

port-lights were opened."

"Not just the time necessary to throw poor Satellite out."

"Agreed; but we must do it quickly."

"And what is the second reason?" asked Michel.

"The second reason is that we must not allow the exterior cold, which is

excessive, to penetrate into our projectile lest we should be frozen

alive."

"Still the sun--"

"The sun warms our projectile because it absorbs its rays, but it does

not warm the void we are in now. When there is no air there is no more

heat than there is diffused light, and where the sun's rays do not reach

directly it is both dark and cold. The temperature outside is only that

produced by the radiation of the stars--that is to say, the same as the

temperature of the terrestrial globe would be if one day the sun were to

be extinguished."

"No fear of that," answered Nicholl.

"Who knows?" said Michel Ardan. "And even supposing that the sun be not

extinguished, it might happen that the earth will move farther away from

it."

"Good!" said Nicholl; "that's one of Michel's ideas!"

"Well," resumed Michel, "it is well known that in 1861 the earth went

through the tail of a comet. Now suppose there was a comet with a power

of attraction greater than that of the sun, the terrestrial globe might

make a curve towards the wandering star, and the earth would become its

satellite, and would be dragged away to such a distance that the rays of

the sun would have no action on its surface."

"That might happen certainly," answered Barbicane, "but the consequences

would not be so redoubtable as you would suppose."

"How so?"

"Because heat and cold would still be pretty well balanced upon our

globe. It has been calculated that if the earth had been carried away by

the comet of 1861, it would only have felt, when at its greatest

distance from the sun, a heat sixteen times greater than that sent to us

by the moon--a heat which, when focussed by the strongest lens, produces

no appreciable effect."

"Well?" said Michel.

"Wait a little," answered Barbicane. "It has been calculated that at its

perihelion, when nearest to the sun, the earth would have borne a heat

equal to 28,000 times that of summer. But this heat, capable of

vitrifying terrestrial matters, and of evaporating water, would have

formed a thick circle of clouds which would have lessened the excessive

heat, hence there would be compensation between the cold of the aphelion

and the heat of the perihelion, and an average probably supportable."

"At what number of degrees do they estimate the temperature of the

planetary space?"

"Formerly," answered Barbicane, "it was believed that this temperature

was exceedingly low. By calculating its thermometric diminution it was

fixed at millions of degrees below zero. It was Fourier, one of Michel's

countrymen, an illustrious savant of the Académie des Sciences, who

reduced these numbers to a juster estimation. According to him, the

temperature of space does not get lower than 60° Centigrade."

Michel whistled.

"It is about the temperature of the polar regions," answered Barbicane,

"at Melville Island or Fort Reliance--about 56° Centigrade below zero."

"It remains to be proved," said Nicholl, "that Fourier was not mistaken

in his calculations. If I am not mistaken, another Frenchman, M.

Pouillet, estimates the temperature of space at 160° below zero. We

shall be able to verify that."

"Not now," answered Barbicane, "for the solar rays striking directly

upon our thermometer would give us, on the contrary, a very elevated

temperature. But when we get upon the moon, during the nights, a

fortnight long, which each of its faces endures alternately, we shall

have leisure to make the experiment, for our satellite moves in the

void."

"What do you mean by the void?" asked Michel; "is it absolute void?"

"It is absolutely void of air."

"Is there nothing in its place?"

"Yes, ether," answered Barbicane.

"Ah! and what is ether?"

"Ether, my friend, is an agglomeration of imponderable particles, which,

relatively to their dimensions, are as far removed from each other as

the celestial bodies are in space, so say works on molecular physics. It

is these atoms that by their vibrating movement produce light and heat

by making four hundred and thirty billions of oscillations a second."

"Millions of millions!" exclaimed Michel Ardan; "then savants have

measured and counted these oscillations! All these figures, friend

Barbicane, are savants' figures, which reach the ear but say nothing

to the mind."

"But they are obliged to have recourse to figures."

"No. It would be much better to compare. A billion signifies nothing. An

object of comparison explains everything. Example--When you tell me that

Uranus is 76 times larger than the earth, Saturn 900 times larger,

Jupiter 1,300 times larger, the sun 1,300,000 times larger, I am not

much wiser. So I much prefer the old comparisons of the Double

Liégoise that simply tells you, 'The sun is a pumpkin two feet in

diameter, Jupiter an orange, Saturn a Blenheim apple, Neptune a large

cherry, Uranus a smaller cherry, the earth a pea, Venus a green pea,

Mars the head of a large pin, Mercury a grain of mustard, and Juno,

Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas fine grains of sand!' Then I know what it

means!"

After this tirade of Michel Ardan's against savants and their

billions, which he delivered without stopping to take breath, they set

about burying Satellite. He was to be thrown into space like sailors

throw a corpse into the sea.

As President Barbicane had recommended, they had to act quickly so as to

lose as little air as possible. The bolts upon the right-hand port-hole

were carefully unscrewed, and an opening of about half a yard made,

whilst Michel prepared to hurl his dog into space. The window, worked by

a powerful lever, which conquered the pressure of air in the interior

upon the sides of the projectile, moved upon its hinges, and Satellite

was thrown out. Scarcely a particle of air escaped, and the operation

succeeded so well that later on Barbicane did not fear to get rid of all

the useless rubbish that encumbered the vehicle in the same way.

CHAPTER VI - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

On the 4th of December, at 5 a.m. by terrestrial reckoning, the

travellers awoke, having been fifty-four hours on their journey. They

had only been five hours and forty minutes more than half the time

assigned for the accomplishment of their journey, but they had come more

than seven-tenths of the distance. This peculiarity was due to their

regularly-decreasing speed.

When they looked at the earth through the port-light at the bottom, it

only looked like a black spot drowned in the sun's rays. No crescent or

pale light was now to be seen. The next day at midnight the earth would

be new at the precise moment when the moon would be full. Above, the

Queen of Night was nearing the line followed by the projectile, so as to

meet it at the hour indicated. All around the dark vault was studded

with brilliant specks which seemed to move slowly; but through the great

distance they were at their relative size did not seem to alter much.

The sun and the stars appeared exactly as they do from the earth. The

moon was considerably enlarged; but the travellers' not very powerful

telescopes did not as yet allow them to make very useful observations on

her surface, or to reconnoitre the topographical or geological details.

The time went by in interminable conversations. The talk was especially

about the moon. Each brought his contingent of particular knowledge.

Barbicane's and Nicholl's were always serious, Michel Ardan's always

fanciful. The projectile, its situation and direction, the incidents

that might arise, the precautions necessitated by its fall upon the

moon, all this afforded inexhaustible material for conjecture.

Whilst breakfasting a question of Michel's relative to the projectile

provoked a rather curious answer from Barbicane, and one worthy of being

recorded.

Michel, supposing the bullet to be suddenly stopped whilst still endowed

with its formidable initial velocity, wished to know what the

consequences would have been.

"But," answered Barbicane, "I don't see how the projectile could have

been stopped."

"But let us suppose it," answered Nicholl.

"It is an impossible supposition," replied the practical president,

"unless the force of impulsion had failed. But in that case its speed

would have gradually decreased, and would not have stopped abruptly."

"Admit that it had struck against some body in space."

"What body?"

"The enormous meteor we met."

"Then," said Nicholl, "the projectile would have been broken into a

thousand pieces, and we with it."

"More than that," answered Barbicane, "we should have been burnt alive."

"Burnt!" exclaimed Michel. "I regret it did not happen for us just to

see."

"And you would have seen with a vengeance," answered Barbicane. "It is

now known that heat is only a modification of movement when water is

heated--that is to say, when heat is added to it--that means the giving

of movement to its particles."

"That is an ingenious theory!" said Michel.

"And a correct one, my worthy friend, for it explains all the phenomena

of caloric. Heat is only molecular movement, a single oscillation of the

particles of a body. When the break is put on a train it stops. But what

becomes of the movement which animated it? Why do they grease the axles

of the wheels? In order to prevent them catching fire from the movement

lost by transformation. Do you understand?"

"Admirably," answered Michel. "For example, when I have been running

some time, and am covered with sweat, why am I forced to stop? Simply

because my movement has been transformed into heat."

Barbicane could not help laughing at this répartie of Michel's. Then

resuming his theory--

"Thus," said he, "in case of a collision, it would have happened to our

projectile as it does to the metal cannon-ball after striking

armour-plate; it would fall burning, because its movement had been

transformed into heat. In consequence, I affirm that if our bullet had

struck against the asteroid, its speed, suddenly annihilated, would have

produced heat enough to turn it immediately into vapour."

"Then," asked Nicholl, "what would happen if the earth were to be

suddenly stopped in her movement of translation?"

"Her temperature would be carried to such a point," answered Barbicane,

"that she would be immediately reduced to vapour."

"Good," said Michel; "that means of ending the world would simplify many

things."

"And suppose the earth were to fall upon the sun?" said Nicholl.

"According to calculations," answered Barbicane, "that would develop a

heat equal to that produced by 1,600 globes of coal, equal in volume to

the terrestrial globe."

"A good increase of temperature for the sun," replied Michel Ardan, "of

which the inhabitants of Uranus or Neptune will probably not complain,

for they must be dying of cold on their planet."

"Thus, then, my friends, any movement suddenly stopped produces heat.

This theory makes it supposed that the sun is constantly fed by an

incessant fall of bodies upon its surface. It has been calculated--"

"Now I shall be crushed," murmured Michel, "for figures are coming."

"It has been calculated," continued Barbicane imperturbably, "that the

shock of each asteroid upon the sun must produce heat equal to that of

4,000 masses of coal of equal volume."

"And what is the heat of the sun?" asked Michel.

"It is equal to that which would be produced by a stratum of coal

surrounding the sun to a depth of twenty-seven kilometres."

"And that heat--"

"Could boil 2,900,000,000 of cubic myriametres of water an hour." (A

myriametre is equal to rather more than 6.2138 miles, or 6 miles 1

furlong 28 poles.)

"And we are not roasted by it?" cried Michel.

"No," answered Barbicane, "because the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs

four-tenths of the solar heat. Besides, the quantity of heat intercepted

by the earth is only two thousand millionth of the total."

"I see that all is for the best," replied Michel, "and that our

atmosphere is a useful invention, for it not only allows us to breathe,

but actually prevents us roasting."

"Yes," said Nicholl, "but, unfortunately, it will not be the same on the

moon."

"Bah!" said Michel, always confident. "If there are any inhabitants they

breathe. If there are no longer any they will surely have left enough

oxygen for three people, if only at the bottom of those ravines where it

will have accumulated by reason of its weight! Well, we shall not climb

the mountains! That is all."

And Michel, getting up, went to look at the lunar disc, which was

shining with intolerable brilliancy.

"Faith!" said he, "it must be hot up there."

"Without reckoning," answered Nicholl, "that daylight lasts 360 hours."

"And by way of compensation night has the same duration," said

Barbicane, "and as heat is restored by radiation, their temperature must

be that of planetary space."

"A fine country truly!" said Nicholl.

"Never mind! I should like to be there already! It will be comical to

have the earth for a moon, to see it rise on the horizon, to recognise

the configuration of its continents, to say to oneself, 'There's America

and there's Europe;' then to follow it till it is lost in the rays of

the sun! By-the-bye, Barbicane, have the Selenites any eclipses?"

"Yes, eclipses of the sun," answered Barbicane, "when the centres of the

three stars are on the same line with the earth in the middle. But they

are merely annular eclipses, during which the earth, thrown like a

screen across the solar disc, allows the greater part to be seen."

"Why is there no total eclipse?" asked Nicholl. "Is it because the cone

of shade thrown by the earth does not extend beyond the moon?"

"Yes, if you do not take into account the refraction produced by the

terrestrial atmosphere, not if you do take that refraction into account.

Thus, let delta be the horizontal parallax and p the apparent

semidiameter--"

"Ouf!" said Michel, "half of v zero square! Do speak the vulgar

tongue, man of algebra!"

"Well, then, in popular language," answered Barbicane, "the mean

distance between the moon and the earth being sixty terrestrial radii,

the length of the cone of shadow, by dint of refraction, is reduced to

less than forty-two radii. It follows, therefore, that during the

eclipses the moon is beyond the cone of pure shade, and the sun sends it

not only rays from its edges, but also rays from its centre."

"Then," said Michel in a grumbling tone, "why is there any eclipse when

there ought to be none?"

"Solely because the solar rays are weakened by the refraction, and the

atmosphere which they traverse extinguishes the greater part of them."

"That reason satisfies me," answered Michel; "besides, we shall see for

ourselves when we get there. Now, Barbicane, do you believe that the

moon is an ancient comet?"

"What an idea!"

"Yes," replied Michel, with amiable conceit, "I have a few ideas of that

kind."

"But that idea does not originate with Michel," answered Nicholl.

"Then I am only a plagiarist."

"Without doubt," answered Nicholl. "According to the testimony of the

ancients, the Arcadians pretended that their ancestors inhabited the

earth before the moon became her satellite. Starting from this fact,

certain savants think the moon was a comet which its orbit one day

brought near enough to the earth to be retained by terrestrial

attraction."

"And what truth is there in that hypothesis?" asked Michel.

"None," answered Barbicane, "and the proof is that the moon has not kept

a trace of the gaseous envelope that always accompanies comets."

"But," said Nicholl, "might not the moon, before becoming the earth's

satellite, have passed near enough to the sun to leave all her gaseous

substances by evaporation?"

"It might, friend Nicholl, but it is not probable."

"Why?"

"Because--because, I really don't know."

"Ah, what hundreds of volumes we might fill with what we don't know!"

exclaimed Michel. "But I say," he continued, "what time is it?"

"Three o'clock," answered Nicholl.

"How the time goes," said Michel, "in the conversation of savants like

us! Decidedly I feel myself getting too learned! I feel that I am

becoming a well of knowledge!"

So saying, Michel climbed to the roof of the projectile, "in order

better to observe the moon," he pretended. In the meanwhile his

companions watched the vault of space through the lower port-light.

There was nothing fresh to signalise.

When Michel Ardan came down again he approached the lateral port-light,

and suddenly uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"What is the matter now?" asked Barbicane.

The president approached the glass and saw a sort of flattened sack

floating outside at some yards' distance from the projectile. This

object seemed motionless like the bullet, and was consequently animated

with the same ascensional movement.

"Whatever can that machine be?" said Michel Ardan. "Is it one of the

corpuscles of space which our projectile holds in its radius of

attraction, and which will accompany it as far as the moon?"

"What I am astonished at," answered Nicholl, "is that the specific

weight of this body, which is certainly superior to that of the bullet,

allows it to maintain itself so rigorously on its level."

"Nicholl," said Barbicane, after a moment's reflection, "I do not know

what that object is, but I know perfectly why it keeps on a level with

the projectile."

"Why, pray?"

"Because we are floating in the void where bodies fall or move--which is

the same thing--with equal speed whatever their weight or form may be.

It is the air which, by its resistance, creates differences in weight.

When you pneumatically create void in a tube, the objects you throw down

it, either lead or feathers, fall with the same rapidity. Here in space

you have the same cause and the same effect."

"True," said Nicholl, "and all we throw out of the projectile will

accompany us to the moon."

"Ah! what fools we are!" cried Michel.

"Why this qualification?" asked Barbicane.

"Because we ought to have filled the projectile with useful objects,

books, instruments, tools, &c. We could have thrown them all out, and

they would all have followed in our wake! But, now I think of it, why

can't we take a walk outside this? Why can't we go into space through

the port-light? What delight it would be to be thus suspended in ether,

more favoured even than birds that are forced to flap their wings to

sustain them!"

"Agreed," said Barbicane, "but how are we to breathe?"

"Confounded air to fail so inopportunely!"

"But if it did not fail, Michel, your density being inferior to that of

the projectile, you would soon remain behind."

"Then it is a vicious circle."

"All that is most vicious."

"And we must remain imprisoned in our vehicle."

"Yes, we must."

"Ah!" cried Michel in a formidable voice.

"What is the matter with you?" asked Nicholl.

"I know, I guess what this pretended asteroid is! It is not a broken

piece of planet!"

"What is it, then?" asked Nicholl.

"It is our unfortunate dog! It is Diana's husband!"

In fact, this deformed object, reduced to nothing, and quite

unrecognisable, was the body of Satellite flattened like a bagpipe

without wind, and mounting, for ever mounting!

CHAPTER VII - A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION.

Thus a curious but logical, strange yet logical phenomenon took place

under these singular conditions. Every object thrown out of the

projectile would follow the same trajectory and only stop when it did.

That furnished a text for conversation which the whole evening could not

exhaust. The emotion of the three travellers increased as they

approached the end of their journey. They expected unforeseen incidents,

fresh phenomena, and nothing would have astonished them under present

circumstances. Their excited imagination outdistanced the projectile,

the speed of which diminished notably without their feeling it. But the

moon grew larger before their eyes, and they thought they had only to

stretch out their hands to touch it.

The next day, the 5th of December, they were all wide awake at 5 a.m.

That day was to be the last of their journey if the calculations were

exact. That same evening, at midnight, within eighteen hours, at the

precise moment of full moon, they would reach her brilliant disc. The

next midnight would bring them to the goal of their journey, the most

extraordinary one of ancient or modern times. At early dawn, through the

windows made silvery with her rays, they saluted the Queen of Night with

a confident and joyful hurrah.

The moon was sailing majestically across the starry firmament. A few

more degrees and she would reach that precise point in space where the

projectile was to meet her. According to his own observations, Barbicane

thought that he should accost her in her northern hemisphere, where vast

plains extend and mountains are rare--a favourable circumstance if the

lunar atmosphere was, according to received opinion, stored up in deep

places only.

"Besides," observed Michel Ardan, "a plain is more suitable for landing

upon than a mountain. A Selenite landed in Europe on the summit of Mont

Blanc, or in Asia on a peak of the Himalayas, would not be precisely at

his destination!"

"What is more," added Nicholl, "on a plain the projectile will remain

motionless after it has touched the ground, whilst it would roll down a

hill like an avalanche, and as we are not squirrels we should not come

out safe and sound. Therefore all is for the best."

In fact, the success of the audacious enterprise no longer appeared

doubtful. Still one reflection occupied Barbicane; but not wishing to

make his two companions uneasy, he kept silence upon it.

The direction of the projectile towards the northern hemisphere proved

that its trajectory had been slightly modified. The aim, mathematically

calculated, ought to have sent the bullet into the very centre of the

lunar disc. If it did not arrive there it would be because it had

deviated. What had caused it? Barbicane could not imagine nor determine

the importance of this deviation, for there was no datum to go upon. He

hoped, however, that the only result would be to take them towards the

upper edge of the moon, a more suitable region for landing.

Barbicane, therefore, without saying anything to his friends, contented

himself with frequently observing the moon, trying to see if the

direction of the projectile would not change. For the situation would

have been so terrible had the bullet, missing its aim, been dragged

beyond the lunar disc and fallen into interplanetary space.

At that moment the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc, already

showed her convexity. If the sun's rays had reached her obliquely the

shadow then thrown would have made the high mountains stand out. They

could have seen the gaping craters and the capricious furrows that cut

up the immense plains. But all relief was levelled in the intense

brilliancy. Those large spots that give the appearance of a human face

to the moon were scarcely distinguishable.

"It may be a face," said Michel Ardan, "but I am sorry for the amiable

sister of Apollo, her face is so freckled!"

In the meantime the travellers so near their goal ceaselessly watched

this new world. Their imagination made them take walks over these

unknown countries. They climbed the elevated peaks. They descended to

the bottom of the large amphitheatres. Here and there they thought they

saw vast seas scarcely kept together under an atmosphere so rarefied,

and streams of water that poured them their tribute from the mountains.

Leaning over the abyss they hoped to catch the noise of this orb for

ever mute in the solitudes of the void.

This last day left them the liveliest remembrances. They noted down the

least details. A vague uneasiness took possession of them as they

approached their goal. This uneasiness would have been doubled if they

had felt how slight their speed was. It appeared quite insufficient to

take them to the end of their journey. This was because the projectile

scarcely "weighed" anything. Its weight constantly decreased, and would

be entirely annihilated on that line where the lunar and terrestrial

attractions neutralise each other, causing surprising effects.

Nevertheless, in spite of his preoccupations, Michel Ardan did not

forget to prepare the morning meal with his habitual punctuality. They

ate heartily. Nothing was more excellent than their broth liquefied by

the heat of the gas. Nothing better than these preserved meats. A few

glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, and caused Michel Ardan

to remark that the lunar vines, warmed by this ardent sun, ought to

distil the most generous wines--that is, if they existed. Any way, the

far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his collection some

precious cuttings of the Médoc and Côte d'Or, upon which he counted

particularly.

The Reiset and Regnault apparatus always worked with extreme precision.

The air was kept in a state of perfect purity. Not a particle of

carbonic acid resisted the potash, and as to the oxygen, that, as

Captain Nicholl said, was of "first quality." The small amount of

humidity in the projectile mixed with this air and tempered its dryness,

and many Paris, London, or New York apartments and many theatres do not

certainly fulfil hygienic conditions so well.

But in order to work regularly this apparatus had to be kept going

regularly. Each morning Michel inspected the escape regulators, tried

the taps, and fixed by the pyrometer the heat of the gas. All had gone

well so far, and the travellers, imitating the worthy J.T. Maston, began

to get so stout that they would not be recognisable if their

imprisonment lasted several months. They behaved like chickens in a

cage--they fattened.

Looking through the port lights Barbicane saw the spectre of the

dog, and the different objects thrown out of the projectile, which

obstinately accompanied it. Diana howled lamentably when she perceived

the remains of Satellite. All the things seemed as motionless as if they

had rested upon solid ground.

"Do you know, my friends," said Michel Ardan, "that if one of us had

succumbed to the recoil shock at departure we should have been much

embarrassed as to how to get rid of him? You see the accusing corpse

would have followed us in space like remorse!"

"That would have been sad," said Nicholl.

"Ah!" continued Michel, "what I regret is our not being able to take a

walk outside. What delight it would be to float in this radiant ether,

to bathe in these pure rays of the sun! If Barbicane had only thought of

furnishing us with diving-dresses and air-pumps I should have ventured

outside, and have assumed the attitude of a flying-horse on the summit

of the projectile."

"Ah, old fellow!" answered Barbicane, "you would not have stayed there

long in spite of your diving-dress; you would have burst like an obus by

the expansion of air inside you, or rather like a balloon that goes up

too high. So regret nothing, and do not forget this: while we are moving

in the void you must do without any sentimental promenade out of the

projectile."

Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced in a certain measure. He

agreed that the thing was difficult, but not "impossible;" that was a

word he never uttered.

The conversation passed from this subject to another, and never

languished an instant. It seemed to the three friends that under these

conditions ideas came into their heads like leaves in the first warm

days of spring.

Amidst the questions and answers that crossed each other during this

morning, Nicholl asked one that did not get an immediate solution.

"I say," said he, "it is all very well to go to the moon, but how shall

we get back again?"

"What do you mean by that, Nicholl?" asked Barbicane gravely.

"It seems to me very inopportune to ask about getting away from a

country before you get to it," added Michel.

"I don't ask that question because I want to draw back, but I repeat my

question, and ask, 'How shall we get back?'"

"I have not the least idea," answered Barbicane.

"And as for me," said Michel, "if I had known how to come back I should

not have gone."

"That is what you call answering," cried Nicholl.

"I approve of Michel's words, and add that the question has no actual

interest. We will think about that later on, when we want to return.

Though the Columbiad will not be there, the projectile will."

"Much good that will be, a bullet without a gun!"

"A gun can be made, and so can powder! Neither metal, saltpetre, nor

coal can be wanting in the bowels of the moon. Besides, in order to

return you have only the lunar attraction to conquer, and you will only

have 8,000 leagues to go so as to fall on the terrestrial globe by the

simple laws of weight."

"That is enough," said Michel, getting animated. "Let us hear no more

about returning. As to communicating with our ancient colleagues upon

earth, that will not be difficult."

"How are we to do that, pray?"

"By means of meteors hurled by the lunar volcanoes."

"A good idea, Michel," answered Barbicane. "Laplace has calculated that

a force five times superior to that of our cannons would suffice to send

a meteor from the moon to the earth. Now there is no volcano that has

not a superior force of propulsion."

"Hurrah!" cried Michel. "Meteors will be convenient postmen and will not

cost anything! And how we shall laugh at the postal service! But now I

think--"

"What do you think?"

"A superb idea! Why did we not fasten a telegraph wire to our bullet? We

could have exchanged telegrams with the earth!"

"And the weight of a wire 86,000 leagues long," answered Nicholl, "does

that go for nothing?"

"Yes, for nothing! We should have trebled the charge of the Columbiad!

We could have made it four times--five times--greater!" cried Michel,

whose voice became more and more violent.

"There is a slight objection to make to your project," answered

Barbicane. "It is that during the movement of rotation of the globe our

wire would have been rolled round it like a chain round a windlass, and

it would inevitably have dragged us down to the earth again."

"By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!" said Michel, "I have nothing

but impracticable ideas to-day--ideas worthy of J.T. Maston! But now I

think of it, if we do not return to earth J.T. Maston will certainly

come to us!"

"Yes! he will come," replied Barbicane; "he is a worthy and courageous

comrade. Besides, what could be easier? Is not the Columbiad still lying

in Floridian soil? Is cotton and nitric acid wanting wherewith to

manufacture the projectile? Will not the moon again pass the zenith of

Florida? In another eighteen years will she not occupy exactly the same

place that she occupies to-day?"

"Yes," repeated Michel--"yes, Maston will come, and with him our friends

Elphinstone, Blomsberry, and all the members of the Gun Club, and they

will be welcome! Later on trains of projectiles will be established

between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J.T. Maston!"

It is probable that if the Honourable J.T. Maston did not hear the

hurrahs uttered in his honour his ears tingled at least. What was he

doing then? He was no doubt stationed in the Rocky Mountains at Long's

Peak, trying to discover the invisible bullet gravitating in space. If

he was thinking of his dear companions it must be acknowledged that they

were not behindhand with him, and that, under the influence of singular

exaltation, they consecrated their best thoughts to him.

But whence came the animation that grew visibly greater in the

inhabitants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be questioned.

Must this strange erethismus of the brain be attributed to the

exceptional circumstances of the time, to that proximity of the Queen of

Night from which a few hours only separated them, or to some secret

influence of the moon acting on their nervous system? Their faces became

as red as if exposed to the reverberation of a furnace; their

respiration became more active, and their lungs played like

forge-bellows; their eyes shone with extraordinary flame, and their

voices became formidably loud, their words escaped like a champagne-cork

driven forth by carbonic acid gas; their gestures became disquieting,

they wanted so much room to perform them in. And, strange to say, they

in no wise perceived this excessive tension of the mind.

"Now," said Nicholl in a sharp tone--"now that I do not know whether we

shall come back from the moon, I will know what we are going there for!"

"What we are going there for!" answered Barbicane, stamping as if he

were in a fencing-room; "I don't know."

"You don't know!" cried Michel with a shout that provoked a sonorous

echo in the projectile.

"No, I have not the least idea!" answered Barbicane, shouting in unison

with his interlocutor.

"Well, then, I know," answered Michel.

"Speak, then," said Nicholl, who could no longer restrain the angry

tones of his voice.

"I shall speak if it suits me!" cried Michel, violently seizing his

companion's arm. "It must suit you!" said Barbicane, with eyes on fire

and threatening hands. "It was you who drew us into this terrible

journey, and we wish to know why!"

"Yes," said the captain, "now I don't know where I am going, I will know

why I am going."

"Why?" cried Michel, jumping a yard high--"why? To take possession of

the moon in the name of the United States! To add a fortieth State to

the Union! To colonise the lunar regions, to cultivate them, people

them, to take them all the wonders of art, science, and industry! To

civilise the Selenites, unless they are more civilised than we are, and

to make them into a republic if they have not already done it for

themselves!"

"If there are any Selenites!" answered Nicholl, who under the empire of

this inexplicable intoxication became very contradictory.

"Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Michel in a threatening tone.

"I do!" shouted Nicholl.

"Captain," said Michel, "do not repeat that insult or I will knock your

teeth down your throat!"

The two adversaries were about to rush upon one another, and this

incoherent discussion was threatening to degenerate into a battle, when

Barbicane interfered.

"Stop, unhappy men," said he, putting his two companions back to back,

"if there are no Selenites, we will do without them!"

"Yes!" exclaimed Michel, who did not care more about them than that. "We

have nothing to do with the Selenites! Bother the Selenites!"

"The empire of the moon shall be ours," said Nicholl. "Let us found a

Republic of three!"

"I shall be the Congress," cried Michel.

"And I the Senate," answered Nicholl.

"And Barbicane the President," shouted Michel.

"No President elected by the nation!" answered Barbicane.

"Well, then, a President elected by the Congress," exclaimed Michel;

"and as I am the Congress I elect you unanimously."

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for President Barbicane!" exclaimed Nicholl.

"Hip--hip--hip! hurrah!" vociferated Michel Ardan.

Then the President and Senate struck up "Yankee Doodle" as loudly as

they could, whilst the Congress shouted the virile "Marseillaise."

Then began a frantic dance with maniacal gestures, mad stamping, and

somersaults of boneless clowns. Diana took part in the dance, howling

too, and jumped to the very roof of the projectile. An inexplicable

flapping of wings and cock-crows of singular sonority were heard. Five

or six fowls flew about striking the walls like mad bats.

Then the three travelling companions, whose lungs were disorganised

under some incomprehensible influence, more than intoxicated, burnt by

the air that had set their breathing apparatus on fire, fell motionless

upon the bottom of the projectile.

CHAPTER VIII - AT SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN LEAGUES.

What had happened? What was the cause of that singular intoxication, the

consequences of which might prove so disastrous? Simply carelessness on

Michel's part, which Nicholl was able to remedy in time.

After a veritable swoon, which lasted a few minutes, the captain, who

was the first to regain consciousness, soon collected his intellectual

faculties.

Although he had breakfasted two hours before, he began to feel as hungry

as if he had not tasted food for several days. His whole being, his

brain and stomach, were excited to the highest point.

He rose, therefore, and demanded a supplementary collation from Michel,

who was still unconscious, and did not answer. Nicholl, therefore,

proceeded to prepare some cups of tea, in order to facilitate the

absorption of a dozen sandwiches. He busied himself first with lighting

a fire, and so struck a match.

What was his surprise to see the sulphur burn with extraordinary and

almost unbearable brilliancy! From the jet of gas he lighted rose a

flame equal to floods of electric light.

A revelation took place in Nicholl's mind. This intensity of light, the

physiological disturbance in himself, the extra excitement of all his

moral and sensitive faculties--he understood it all.

"The oxygen!" he exclaimed.

And leaning over the air-apparatus, he saw that the tap was giving out a

flood of colourless, savourless, and odourless gas, eminently vital, but

which in a pure state produces the gravest disorders in the

constitution. Through carelessness Michel had left the tap full on.

Nicholl made haste to turn off this flow of oxygen with which the

atmosphere was saturated, and which would have caused the death of the

travellers, not by suffocation, but by combustion.

An hour afterwards the air was relieved, and gave their normal play to

the lungs. By degrees the three friends recovered from their

intoxication; but they were obliged to recover from their oxygen like a

drunkard from his wine.

When Michel knew his share of responsibility in this incident he did not

appear in the least disconcerted. This unexpected intoxication broke the

monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said under its

influence, but they had been forgotten as soon as said.

"Then," added the merry Frenchman, "I am not sorry for having

experienced the effect of this captious gas. Do you know, my friends,

that there might be a curious establishment set up with oxygen-rooms,

where people whose constitutions are weak might live a more active life

during a few hours at least? Suppose we had meetings where the air could

be saturated with this heroic fluid, theatres where the managers would

send it out in strong doses, what passion there would be in the souls of

actors and spectators, what fire and what enthusiasm! And if, instead of

a simple assembly, a whole nation could be saturated with it, what

activity, what a supplement of life it would receive! Of an exhausted

nation it perhaps would make a great and strong nation, and I know more

than one state in old Europe that ought to put itself under the oxygen

régime in the interest of its health."

Michel spoke with as much animation as if the tap were still full on.

But with one sentence Barbicane damped his enthusiasm.

"All that is very well, friend Michel," he said, "but now perhaps you

will tell us where those fowls that joined in our concert came from."

"Those fowls?"

"Yes."

In fact, half-a-dozen hens and a superb cock were flying hither and

thither.

"Ah, the stupids!" cried Michel. "It was the oxygen that put them in

revolt."

"But what are you going to do with those fowls?" asked Barbicane.

"Acclimatise them in the moon of course! For the sake of a joke, my

worthy president; simply a joke that has unhappily come to nothing! I

wanted to let them out on the lunar continent without telling you! How

astounded you would have been to see these terrestrial poultry pecking

the fields of the moon!"

"Ah, gamin, you eternal boy!" answered Barbicane, "you don't want

oxygen to make you out of your senses! You are always what we were under

the influence of this gas! You are always insane!"

"Ah! how do we know we were not wiser then?" replied Michel Ardan.

After this philosophical reflection the three friends repaired the

disorder in the projectile. Cock and hens were put back in their cage.

But as they were doing this Barbicane and his two companions distinctly

perceived a fresh phenomenon.

Since the moment they had left the earth their own weight, that of the

bullet and the objects it contained, had suffered progressive

diminution. Though they could not have any experience of this in the

projectile, a moment must come when the effect upon themselves and the

tools and instruments they used would be felt.

Of course scales would not have indicated this loss of weight, for the

weights used would have lost precisely as much as the object itself; but

a spring weighing-machine, the tension of which is independent of

attraction, would have given the exact valuation of this diminution.

It is well known that attraction, or weight, is in proportion to the

bulk, and in inverse proportion to the square of distances. Hence this

consequence. If the earth had been alone in space, if the other heavenly

bodies were to be suddenly annihilated, the projectile, according to

Newton's law, would have weighed less according to its distance from the

earth, but without ever losing its weight entirely, for the terrestrial

attraction would always have made itself felt, no matter at what

distance.

But in the case with which we are dealing, a moment must come when the

projectile would not be at all under the law of gravitation, after

allowing for the other celestial bodies, whose effect could not be set

down as zero.

In fact, the trajectory of the projectile was between the earth and the

moon. As it went farther away from the earth terrestrial attraction

would be diminished in inverse proportion to the square of distances,

but the lunar attraction would be augmented in the same proportion. A

point must, therefore, be reached where these two attractions would

neutralise each other, and the bullet would have no weight at all. If

the volumes of the moon and earth were equal, this point would have been

reached at an equal distance between the two bodies. But by taking their

difference of bulk into account it was easy to calculate that this

point would be situated at 47/52 of the journey, or at 78,114 leagues

from the earth.

At this point a body that had no principle of velocity or movement in

itself would remain eternally motionless, being equally attracted by the

two heavenly bodies, and nothing drawing it more towards one than the

other.

Now if the force of impulsion had been exactly calculated the projectile

ought to reach that point with no velocity, having lost all weight like

the objects it contained.

What would happen then? Three hypotheses presented themselves.

Either the projectile would have kept some velocity, and passing the

point of equal attraction, would fall on the moon by virtue of the

excess of lunar attraction over terrestrial attraction.

Or velocity sufficient to reach the neutral point being wanting, it

would fall back on the earth by virtue of the excess of terrestrial

attraction over lunar attraction.

Or lastly, endowed with sufficient velocity to reach the neutral point,

but insufficient to pass it, it would remain eternally suspended in the

same place, like the pretended coffin of Mahomet, between the zenith and

nadir.

Such was the situation, and Barbicane clearly explained the consequences

to his travelling companions. They were interested to the highest

degree. How were they to know when they had reached this neutral point,

situated at 78,114 leagues from the earth, at the precise moment when

neither they nor the objects contained in the projectile should be in

any way subject to the laws of weight?

Until now the travellers, though they had remarked that this action

diminished little by little, had not yet perceived its total absence.

But that day, about 11 a.m., Nicholl having let a tumbler escape from

his hand, instead of falling, it remained suspended in the air.

"Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "this is a little amusing chemistry!"

And immediately different objects, weapons, bottles, &c, left to

themselves, hung suspended as if by miracle. Diana, too, lifted up by

Michel into space, reproduced, but without trickery, the marvellous

suspensions effected by Robert-Houdin and Maskelyne and Cook.

The three adventurous companions, surprised and stupefied in spite of

their scientific reasoning, carried into the domain of the marvellous,

felt weight go out of their bodies. When they stretched out their arms

they felt no inclination to drop them. Their heads vacillated on their

shoulders. Their feet no longer kept at the bottom of the projectile.

They were like staggering drunkards. Imagination has created men

deprived of their reflection, others deprived of their shadows! But here

reality, by the neutrality of active forces, made men in whom nothing

had any weight, and who weighed nothing themselves.

Suddenly Michel, making a slight spring, left the floor and remained

suspended in the air like the good monk in Murillo's Cuisine des

Anges. His two friends joined him in an instant, and all three, in the

centre of the projectile, figured a miraculous ascension.

"Is it believable? Is it likely? Is it possible?" cried Michel. "No. And

yet it exists! Ah! if Raphael could have seen us like this what an

Assumption he could have put upon canvas!"

"The Assumption cannot last," answered Barbicane. "If the projectile

passes the neutral point, the lunar attraction will draw us to the

moon."

"Then our feet will rest upon the roof of the projectile,' answered

Michel.

"No," said Barbicane, "because the centre of gravity in the projectile

is very low, and it will turn over gradually."

"Then all our things will be turned upside down for certain!"

"Do not alarm yourself, Michel," answered Nicholl. "There is nothing of

the kind to be feared. Not an object will move; the projectile will turn

insensibly."

"In fact," resumed Barbicane, "when it has cleared the point of equal

attraction, its bottom, relatively heavier, will drag it perpendicularly

down to the moon. But in order that such a phenomenon should take place

we must pass the neutral line."

"Passing the neutral line!" cried Michel. "Then let us do like the

sailors who pass the equator--let us water our passage!"

A slight side movement took Michel to the padded wall. Thence he took a

bottle and glasses, placed them "in space" before his companions, and

merrily touching glasses, they saluted the line with a triple hurrah.

This influence of the attractions lasted scarcely an hour. The

travellers saw themselves insensibly lowered towards the bottom, and

Barbicane thought he remarked that the conical end of the projectile

deviated slightly from the normal direction towards the moon. By an

inverse movement the bottom side approached it. Lunar attraction was

therefore gaining over terrestrial attraction. The fall towards the moon

began, insensibly as yet; it could only be that of a millimetre (0.03937

inch), and a third in the first second. But the attractive force would

gradually increase, the fall would be more accentuated, the projectile,

dragged down by its bottom side, would present its cone to the earth,

and would fall with increasing velocity until it reached the Selenite

surface. Now nothing could prevent the success of the enterprise, and

Nicholl and Michel Ardan shared Barbicane's joy.

Then they chatted about all the phenomena that had astounded them one

after another, especially about the neutralisation of the laws of

weight. Michel Ardan, always full of enthusiasm, wished to deduce

consequences which were only pure imagination.

"Ah! my worthy friends," he cried, "what progress we should make could

we but get rid upon earth of this weight, this chain that rivets us to

her! It would be the prisoner restored to liberty! There would be no

more weariness either in arms or legs. And if it is true that, in order

to fly upon the surface of the earth, to sustain yourself in the air by

a simple action of the muscles, it would take a force 150 times superior

to that we possess, a simple act of will, a caprice, would transport us

into space, and attraction would not exist."

"In fact," said Nicholl, laughing, "if they succeeded in suppressing

gravitation, like pain is suppressed by anaesthesia, it would change the

face of modern society!"

"Yes," cried Michel, full of his subject, "let us destroy weight and

have no more burdens! No more cranes, screw-jacks, windlasses, cranks,

or other machines will be wanted."

"Well said," replied Barbicane; "but if nothing had any weight nothing

would keep in its place, not even the hat on your head, worthy Michel;

nor your house, the stones of which only adhere by their weight! Not

even ships, whose stability upon the water is only a consequence of

weight. Not even the ocean, whose waves would no longer be held in

equilibrium by terrestrial attraction. Lastly, not even the atmosphere,

the molecules of which, being no longer held together, would disperse

into space!"

"That is a pity," replied Michel. "There is nothing like positive people

for recalling you brutally to reality!"

"Nevertheless, console yourself, Michel," resumed Barbicane, "for if no

star could exist from which the laws of weight were banished, you are at

least going to pay a visit where gravity is much less than upon earth."

"The moon?"

"Yes, the moon, on the surface of which objects weigh six times less

than upon the surface of the earth, a phenomenon very easy to

demonstrate."

"And shall we perceive it?" asked Michel. "Evidently, for 400 lbs. only

weigh 60 lbs. on the surface of the moon."

"Will not our muscular strength be diminished?"

"Not at all. Instead of jumping one yard you will be able to rise six."

"Then we shall be Hercules in the moon," cried Michel.

"Yes," replied Nicholl, "and the more so because if the height of the

Selenites is in proportion to the bulk of their globe they will be

hardly a foot high."

"Liliputians!" replied Michel. "Then I am going to play the rôle of

Gulliver! We shall realise the fable of the giants! That is the

advantage of leaving one's own planet to visit the solar world!"

"But if you want to play Gulliver," answered Barbicane, "only visit the

inferior planets, such as Mercury, Venus, or Mars, whose bulk is rather

less than that of the earth. But do not venture into the big planets,

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, for there the rôles would be

inverted, and you would become Liliputian."

"And in the sun?"

"In the sun, though its density is four times less than that of the

earth, its volume is thirteen hundred and twenty-four thousand times

greater, and gravitation there is twenty-seven times greater than upon

the surface of our globe. Every proportion kept, the inhabitants ought

on an average to be two hundred feet high."

"The devil!" exclaimed Michel. "I should only be a pigmy!"

"Gulliver amongst the giants," said Nicholl.

"Just so," answered Barbicane.

"It would not have been a bad thing to carry some pieces of artillery to

defend oneself with."

"Good," replied Barbicane; "your bullets would have no effect on the

sun, and they would fall to the ground in a few minutes."

"That's saying a great deal!"

"It is a fact," answered Barbicane. "Gravitation is so great on that

enormous planet that an object weighing 70 lbs. on the earth would weigh

1,930 lbs. on the surface of the sun. Your hat would weigh 20 lbs.! your

cigar 1/2 lb.! Lastly, if you fell on the solar continent your weight

would be so great--about 5,000 lbs.--that you could not get up again."

"The devil!" said Michel, "I should have to carry about a portable

crane! Well, my friends, let us be content with the moon for to-day.

There, at least, we shall cut a great figure! Later on we shall see if

we will go to the sun, where you can't drink without a crane to lift the

glass to your mouth."

CHAPTER IX - THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEVIATION.

Barbicane had now no fear, if not about the issue of the journey, at

least about the projectile's force of impulsion. Its own speed would

carry it beyond the neutral line. Therefore it would not return to the

earth nor remain motionless upon the point of attraction. One hypothesis

only remained to be realised, the arrival of the bullet at its goal

under the action of lunar attraction.

In reality it was a fall of 8,296 leagues upon a planet, it is true,

where the gravity is six times less than upon the earth. Nevertheless it

would be a terrible fall, and one against which all precautions ought to

be taken without delay.

These precautions were of two sorts; some were for the purpose of

deadening the shock at the moment the projectile would touch lunar

ground; others were to retard the shock, and so make it less violent.

In order to deaden the shock, it was a pity that Barbicane was no longer

able to employ the means that had so usefully weakened the shock at

departure--that is to say, the water used as a spring and the movable

partitions. The partitions still existed, but water was wanting, for

they could not use the reserve for this purpose--that would be precious

in case the liquid element should fail on the lunar soil.

Besides, this reserve would not have been sufficient for a spring. The

layer of water stored in the projectile at their departure, and on which

lay the waterproof disc, occupied no less than three feet in depth, and

spread over a surface of not less than fifty-four feet square. Now the

receptacles did not contain the fifth part of that. They were therefore

obliged to give up this effectual means of deadening the shock.

Fortunately Barbicane, not content with employing water, had furnished

the movable disc with strong spring buffers, destined to lessen the

shock against the bottom, after breaking the horizontal partitions.

These buffers were still in existence; they had only to be fitted on and

the movable disc put in its place. All these pieces, easy to handle, as

they weighed scarcely anything, could be rapidly mounted.

This was done. The different pieces were adjusted without difficulty. It

was only a matter of bolts and screws. There were plenty of tools. The

disc was soon fixed on its steel buffers like a table on its legs. One

inconvenience resulted from this arrangement. The lower port-hole was

covered, and it would be impossible for the travellers to observe the

moon through that opening whilst they were being precipitated

perpendicularly upon her. But they were obliged to give it up. Besides,

through the lateral openings they could still perceive the vast lunar

regions, like the earth is seen from the car of a balloon.

This placing of the disc took an hour's work. It was more than noon when

the preparations were completed. Barbicane made fresh observations on

the inclination of the projectile, but to his great vexation it had not

turned sufficiently for a fall; it appeared to be describing a curve

parallel with the lunar disc. The Queen of Night was shining splendidly

in space, whilst opposite the orb of day was setting her on fire with

his rays.

This situation soon became an anxious one.

"Shall we get there?" said Nicholl.

"We must act as though we should," answered Barbicane.

"You are faint-hearted fellows," replied Michel Ardan. "We shall get

there, and quicker than we want."

This answer recalled Barbicane to his preparations, and he occupied

himself with placing the contrivances destined to retard the fall.

It will be remembered that, at the meeting held in Tampa Town, Florida,

Captain Nicholl appeared as Barbicane's enemy, and Michel Ardan's

adversary. When Captain Nicholl said that the projectile would be broken

like glass, Michel answered that he would retard the fall by means of

fusees properly arranged.

In fact, powerful fusees, resting upon the bottom, and being fired

outside, might, by producing a recoil action, lessen the speed of the

bullet. These fusees were to burn in the void it is true, but oxygen

would not fail them, for they would furnish that themselves like the

lunar volcanoes, the deflagration of which has never been prevented by

the want of atmosphere around the moon.

Barbicane had therefore provided himself with fireworks shut up in

little cannons of bored steel, which could be screwed on to the bottom

of the projectile. Inside these cannons were level with the bottom;

outside they went half a foot beyond it. There were twenty of them. An

opening in the disc allowed them to light the match with which each was

provided. All the effect took place outside. The exploding mixture had

been already rammed into each gun. All they had to do, therefore, was to

take up the metallic buffers fixed in the base, and to put these cannons

in their place, where they fitted exactly.

This fresh work was ended about 3 p.m., and all precaution taken they

had now nothing to do but to wait.

In the meantime the projectile visibly drew nearer the moon. It was,

therefore, submitted in some proportion to its influence; but its own

velocity also inclined it in an oblique line. Perhaps the result of

these two influences would be a line that would become a tangent. But it

was certain that the projectile was not falling normally upon the

surface of the moon, for its base, by reason of its weight, ought to

have been turned towards her.

Barbicane's anxiety was increased on seeing that his bullet resisted the

influence of gravitation. It was the unknown that was before him--the

unknown of the interstellar regions. He, the savant, believed that he

had foreseen the only three hypotheses that were possible--the return to

the earth, the fall upon the moon, or stagnation upon the neutral line!

And here a fourth hypothesis, full of all the terrors of the infinite,

cropped up inopportunely. To face it without flinching took a resolute

savant like Barbicane, a phlegmatic being like Nicholl, or an

audacious adventurer like Michel Ardan.

Conversation was started on this subject. Other men would have

considered the question from a practical point of view. They would have

wondered where the projectile would take them to. Not they, however.

They sought the cause that had produced this effect.

"So we are off the line," said Michel. "But how is that?"

"I am very much afraid," answered Nicholl, "that notwithstanding all the

precautions that were taken, the Columbiad was not aimed correctly. The

slightest error would suffice to throw us outside the pale of lunar

attraction."

"Then the cannon was pointed badly?" said Michel.

"I do not think so," answered Barbicane. "The cannon was rigorously

perpendicular, and its direction towards the zenith of the place was

incontestable. The moon passing the zenith, we ought to have reached her

at the full. There is another reason, but it escapes me."

"Perhaps we have arrived too late," suggested Nicholl.

"Too late?" said Barbicane.

"Yes," resumed Nicholl. "The notice from the Cambridge Observatory said

that the transit ought to be accomplished in ninety-seven hours thirteen

minutes and twenty seconds. That means that before that time the moon

would not have reached the point indicated, and after she would have

passed it."

"Agreed," answered Barbicane. "But we started on the 1st of December at

11h. 13m. 25s. p.m., and we ought to arrive at midnight on the 5th,

precisely as the moon is full. Now this is the 5th of December. It is

half-past three, and eight hours and a half ought to be sufficient to

take us to our goal. Why are we not going towards it?"

"Perhaps the velocity was greater than it ought to have been," answered

Nicholl, "for we know now that the initial velocity was greater than it

was supposed to be."

"No! a hundred times no!" replied Barbicane. "An excess of velocity,

supposing the direction of the projectile to have been correct, would

not have prevented us reaching the moon. No! There has been a deviation.

We have deviated!"

"Through whom? through what?" asked Nicholl.

"I cannot tell," answered Barbicane.

"Well, Barbicane," then said Michel, "should you like to know what I

think about why we have deviated?"

"Say what you think."

"I would not give half a dollar to know! We have deviated, that is a

fact. It does not matter much where we are going. We shall soon find

out. As we are being carried along into space we shall end by falling

into some centre of attraction or another."

Barbicane could not be contented with this indifference of Michel

Ardan's. Not that he was anxious about the future. But what he wanted to

know, at any price, was why his projectile had deviated.

In the meantime the projectile kept on its course sideways to the moon,

and the objects thrown out along with it. Barbicane could even prove by

the landmarks upon the moon, which was only at 2,000 leagues' distance,

that its speed was becoming uniform--a fresh proof that they were not

falling. Its force of impulsion was prevailing over the lunar

attraction, but the trajectory of the projectile was certainly taking

them nearer the lunar disc, and it might be hoped that at a nearer point

the weight would predominate and provoke a fall.

The three friends, having nothing better to do, went on with their

observations. They could not, however, yet determine the topography of

the satellite. Every relief was levelled under the action of the solar

rays.

They watched thus through the lateral windows until 8 p.m. The moon then

looked so large that she hid half the firmament from them. The sun on

one side, and the Queen of Night on the other, inundated the projectile

with light.

At that moment Barbicane thought he could estimate at 700 leagues only

the distance that separated them from their goal. The velocity of the

projectile appeared to him to be 200 yards a second, or about 170

leagues an hour. The base of the bullet had a tendency to turn towards

the moon under the influence of the centripetal force; but the

centrifugal force still predominated, and it became probable that the

rectilinear trajectory would change to some curve the nature of which

could not be determined.

Barbicane still sought the solution of his insoluble problem. The hours

went by without result. The projectile visibly drew nearer to the moon,

but it was plain that it would not reach her. The short distance at

which it would pass her would be the result of two forces, attractive

and repulsive, which acted upon the projectile.

"I only pray for one thing," repeated Michel, "and that is to pass near

enough to the moon to penetrate her secrets."

"Confound the cause that made our projectile deviate!" cried Nicholl.

"Then," said Barbicane, as if he had been suddenly struck with an idea,

"confound that asteroid that crossed our path!"

"Eh?" said Michel Ardan.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicholl.

"I mean," resumed Barbicane, who appeared convinced, "I mean that our

deviation is solely due to the influence of that wandering body."

"But it did not even graze us," continued Michel.

"What does that matter? Its bulk, compared with that of our projectile,

was enormous, and its attraction was sufficient to have an influence

upon our direction."

"That influence must have been very slight," said Nicholl.

"Yes, Nicholl, but slight as it was," answered Barbicane, "upon a

distance of 84,000 leagues it was enough to make us miss the moon!"

CHAPTER X - THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.

Barbicane had evidently found the only plausible reason for the

deviation. However slight it had been, it had been sufficient to modify

the trajectory of the projectile. It was a fatality. The audacious

attempt had miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance, and unless anything

unexpected happened, the lunar disc could no longer be reached. Would

they pass it near enough to resolve certain problems in physics and

geology until then unsolved? This was the only question that occupied

the minds of these bold travellers. As to the fate the future held in

store for them, they would not even think about it. Yet what was to

become of them amidst these infinite solitudes when air failed them? A

few more days and they would fall suffocated in this bullet wandering at

hazard. But a few days were centuries to these intrepid men, and they

consecrated every moment to observing the moon they no longer hoped to

reach.

The distance which then separated the projectile from the satellite was

estimated at about 200 leagues. Under these conditions, as far as

regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travellers were

farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of the earth with their

powerful telescopes.

It is, in fact, known that the instrument set up by Lord Rosse at

Parsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon to within

sixteen leagues; and the powerful telescope set up at Long's Peak

magnifies 48,000 times, and brings the moon to within less than two

leagues, so that objects twelve yards in diameter were sufficiently

distinct.

Thus, then, at that distance the topographical details of the moon, seen

without a telescope, were not distinctly determined. The eye caught the

outline of those vast depressions inappropriately called "seas," but

they could not determine their nature. The prominence of the mountains

disappeared under the splendid irradiation produced by the reflection of

the solar rays. The eye, dazzled as if leaning over a furnace of molten

silver, turned from it involuntarily.

However, the oblong form of the orb was already clearly seen.

It appeared like a gigantic egg, with the small end turned towards the

earth. The moon, liquid and pliable in the first days of her formation,

was originally a perfect sphere. But soon, drawn within the pale of the

earth's gravitation, she became elongated under its influence. By

becoming a satellite she lost her native purity of form; her centre of

gravity was in advance of the centre of her figure, and from this fact

some savants draw the conclusion that air and water might have taken

refuge on the opposite side of the moon, which is never seen from the

earth.

This alteration in the primitive forms of the satellite was only visible

for a few moments. The distance between the projectile and the moon

diminished visibly; its velocity was considerably less than its initial

velocity, but eight or nine times greater than that of our express

trains. The oblique direction of the bullet, from its very obliquity,

left Michel Ardan some hope of touching the lunar disc at some point or

other. He could not believe that he should not get to it. No, he could

not believe it, and this he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a

better judge, always answered him with pitiless logic.

"No, Michel, no. We can only reach the moon by a fall, and we are not

falling. The centripetal force keeps us under the moon's influence, but

the centrifugal force sends us irresistibly away from it."

This was said in a tone that deprived Michel Ardan of his last hopes.

The portion of the moon the projectile was approaching was the northern

hemisphere. The selenographic maps make it the lower one, because they

are generally drawn up according to the image given by the telescopes,

and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the Mappa

Selenographica of Boeer and Moedler which Barbicane consulted. This

northern hemisphere presented vast plains, relieved by isolated

mountains.

At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment the travellers

ought to have set foot upon her if the unlucky asteroid had not made

them deviate from their direction. The orb was exactly in the condition

rigorously determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She was

mathematically at her perigee, and at the zenith of the twenty-eighth

parallel. An observer placed at the bottom of the enormous Columbiad

while it is pointed perpendicularly at the horizon would have framed the

moon in the mouth of the cannon. A straight line drawn through the axis

of the piece would have passed through the centre of the moon.

It need hardly be stated that during the night between the 5th and 6th

of December the travellers did not take a minute's rest. Could they have

closed their eyes so near to a new world? No. All their feelings were

concentrated in one thought--to see! Representatives of the earth, of

humanity past and present, all concentrated in themselves, it was

through their eyes that the human race looked at these lunar regions and

penetrated the secrets of its satellite! A strange emotion filled their

hearts, and they went silently from one window to another.

Their observations were noted down by Barbicane, and were made

rigorously exact. To make them they had telescopes. To control them they

had maps.

The first observer of the moon was Galileo. His poor telescope only

magnified thirty times. Nevertheless, in the spots that pitted the lunar

disc "like eyes in a peacock's tail," he was the first to recognise

mountains, and measure some heights to which he attributed,

exaggerating, an elevation equal to the 20th of the diameter of the

disc, or 8,000 metres. Galileo drew up no map of his observations.

A few years later an astronomer of Dantzig, Hevelius--by operations

which were only exact twice a month, at the first and second

quadrature--reduced Galileo's heights to one-twenty-sixth only of the

lunar diameter. This was an exaggeration the other way. But it is to

this savant that the first map of the moon is due. The light round

spots there form circular mountains, and the dark spots indicate vast

seas which, in reality, are plains. To these mountains and extents of

sea he gave terrestrial denominations. There is a Sinai in the middle of

an Arabia, Etna in the centre of Sicily, the Alps, Apennines,

Carpathians, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian, &c.--names

badly applied, for neither mountains nor seas recalled the configuration

of their namesakes on the globe. That large white spot, joined on the

south to vaster continents and terminated in a point, could hardly be

recognised as the inverted image of the Indian Peninsula, the Bay of

Bengal, and Cochin-China. So these names were not kept. Another

chartographer, knowing human nature better, proposed a fresh

nomenclature, which human vanity made haste to adopt.

This observer was Father Riccioli, a contemporary of Hevelius. He drew

up a rough map full of errors. But he gave to the lunar mountains the

names of great men of antiquity and savants of his own epoch.

A third map of the moon was executed in the seventeenth century by

Dominique Cassini; superior to that of Riccioli in the execution, it is

inexact in the measurements. Several smaller copies were published, but

the plate long kept in the Imprimerie Nationale was sold by weight as

old brass.

La Hire, a celebrated mathematician and designer, drew up a map of the

moon four and a half yards high, which was never engraved.

After him, a German astronomer, Tobie Marger, about the middle of the

eighteenth century, began the publication of a magnificent selenographic

map, according to lunar measures, which he rigorously verified; but his

death, which took place in 1762, prevented the termination of this

beautiful work.

It was in 1830 that Messrs. Boeer and Moedler composed their celebrated

Mappa Selenographica, according to an orthographical projection. This

map reproduces the exact lunar disc, such as it appears, only the

configurations of the mountains and plains are only correct in the

central part; everywhere else--in the northern or southern portions,

eastern or western--the configurations foreshortened cannot be compared

with those of the centre. This topographical map, one yard high and

divided into four parts, is a masterpiece of lunar chartography.

After these savants may be cited the selenographic reliefs of the

German astronomer Julius Schmidt, the topographical works of Father

Secchi, the magnificent sheets of the English amateur, Waren de la Rue,

and lastly a map on orthographical projection of Messrs. Lecouturier and

Chapuis, a fine model set up in 1860, of very correct design and clear

outlines.

Such is the nomenclature of the different maps relating to the lunar

world. Barbicane possessed two, that of Messrs. Boeer and Moedler and

that of Messrs. Chapuis and Lecouturier. They were to make his work of

observer easier.

They had excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this

journey. They magnified objects a hundred times; they would therefore

have reduced the distance between the earth and the moon to less than

1,000 leagues. But then at a distance which towards 3 a.m. did not

exceed a hundred miles, and in a medium which no atmosphere obstructed,

these instruments brought the lunar level to less than fifteen hundred

metres.

CHAPTER XI - IMAGINATION AND REALITY.

"Have you ever seen the moon?" a professor asked one of his pupils

ironically.

"No, sir," answered the pupil more ironically still, "but I have heard

it spoken of."

In one sense the jocose answer of the pupil might have been made by the

immense majority of sublunary beings. How many people there are who have

heard the moon spoken of and have never seen it--at least through a

telescope! How many even have never examined the map of their satellite!

Looking at a comprehensive selenographic map, one peculiarity strikes us

at once. In contrast to the geographical arrangements of the earth and

Mars, the continents occupy the more southern hemisphere of the lunar

globe. These continents have not such clear and regular boundary-lines

as those of South America, Africa, and the Indian Peninsula. Their

angular, capricious, and deeply-indented coasts are rich in gulfs and

peninsulas. They recall the confusion in the islands of the Sound, where

the earth is excessively cut up. If navigation has ever existed upon the

surface of the moon it must have been exceedingly difficult and

dangerous, and the Selenite mariners and hydrographers were greatly to

be pitied, the former when they came upon these perilous coasts, the

latter when they were marine surveying on the stormy banks.

It may also be noticed that upon the lunar spheroid the South Pole is

much more continental than the North Pole. On the latter there is only a

slight strip of land capping it, separated from the other continents by

vast seas. (When the word "seas" is used the vast plains probably

covered by the sea formerly must be understood.) On the south the land

covers nearly the whole hemisphere. It is, therefore, possible that the

Selenites have already planted their flag on one of their poles, whilst

Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont d'Urville, and Lambert have been unable to

reach this unknown point on the terrestrial globe.

Islands are numerous on the surface of the moon. They are almost all

oblong or circular, as though traced with a compass, and seem to form a

vast archipelago, like that charming group lying between Greece and Asia

Minor which mythology formerly animated with its most graceful legends.

Involuntarily the names of Naxos, Tenedos, Milo, and Carpathos come into

the mind, and you seek the ship of Ulysses or the "clipper" of the

Argonauts. That was what it appeared to Michel Ardan; it was a Grecian

Archipelago that he saw on the map. In the eyes of his less imaginative

companions the aspect of these shores recalled rather the cut-up lands

of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and where the Frenchman looked for

traces of the heroes of fable, these Americans were noting favourable

points for the establishment of mercantile houses in the interest of

lunar commerce and industry.

Some remarks on the orographical disposition of the moon must conclude

the description of its continents, chains of mountains, isolated

mountains, amphitheatres, and watercourses. The moon is like an immense

Switzerland--a continual Norway, where Plutonic influence has done

everything. This surface, so profoundly rugged, is the result of the

successive contractions of the crust while the orb was being formed. The

lunar disc is propitious for the study of great geological phenomena.

According to the remarks of some astronomers, its surface, although more

ancient than the surface of the earth, has remained newer. There there

is no water to deteriorate the primitive relief, the continuous action

of which produces a sort of general levelling. No air, the decomposing

influence of which modifies orographical profiles. There Pluto's work,

unaltered by Neptune's, is in all its native purity. It is the earth as

she was before tides and currents covered her with layers of soil.

After having wandered over these vast continents the eye is attracted by

still vaster seas. Not only does their formation, situation, and aspect

recall the terrestrial oceans, but, as upon earth, these seas occupy the

largest part of the globe. And yet these are not liquid tracts, but

plains, the nature of which the travellers hoped soon to determine.

Astronomers, it must be owned, have decorated these pretended seas with

at least odd names which science has respected at present. Michel Ardan

was right when he compared this map to a "map of tenderness," drawn up

by Scudery or Cyrano de Bergerac.

"Only," added he, "it is no longer the map of sentiment like that of the

18th century; it is the map of life, clearly divided into two parts, the

one feminine, the other masculine. To the women, the right hemisphere;

to the men, the left!"

When he spoke thus Michel made his prosaic companions shrug their

shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked at the lunar map from another

point of view to that of their imaginative friend. However, their

imaginative friend had some reason on his side. Judge if he had not.

In the left hemisphere stretches the "Sea of Clouds," where human reason

is so often drowned. Not far off appears the "Sea of Rains," fed by all

the worries of existence. Near lies the "Sea of Tempests," where man

struggles incessantly against his too-often victorious passions. Then,

exhausted by deceptions, treasons, infidelities, and all the procession

of terrestrial miseries, what does he find at the end of his career? The

vast "Sea of Humours," scarcely softened by some drops from the waters

of the "Gulf of Dew!" Clouds, rain, tempests, humours, does the life of

man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up in these four

words?

The right-hand hemisphere dedicated to "the women" contains smaller

seas, the significant names of which agree with every incident of

feminine existence. There is the "Sea of Serenity," over which bends the

young maiden, and the "Lake of Dreams," which reflects her back a happy

future. The "Sea of Nectar," with its waves of tenderness and breezes of

love! The "Sea of Fecundity," the "Sea of Crises," and the "Sea of

Vapours," the dimensions of which are, perhaps, too restricted, and

lastly, that vast "Sea of Tranquillity" where all false passions, all

useless dreams, all unassuaged desires are absorbed, and the waves of

which flow peacefully into the "Lake of Death!"

What a strange succession of names! What a singular division of these

two hemispheres of the moon, united to one another like man and woman,

and forming a sphere of life, carried through space. And was not the

imaginative Michel right in thus interpreting the fancies of the old

astronomers?

But whilst his imagination thus ran riot on the "seas," his grave

companions were looking at things more geographically. They were

learning this new world by heart. They were measuring its angles and

diameters.

To Barbicane and Nicholl the "Sea of Clouds" was an immense depression

of ground, with circular mountains scattered about on it; covering a

great part of the western side of the southern hemisphere, it covered

184,800 square leagues, and its centre was in south latitude 15°, and

west longitude 20°. The Ocean of Tempests, Oceanus Procellarum, the

largest plain on the lunar disc, covered a surface of 328,300 square

leagues, its centre being in north latitude 10°, and east longitude 45°.

From its bosom emerge the admirable shining mountains of Kepler and

Aristarchus.

More to the north, and separated from the Sea of Clouds by high chains

of mountains, extends the Sea of Rains, Mare Imbrium, having its

central point in north latitude 35° and east longitude 20°; it is of a

nearly circular form, and covers a space of 193,000 leagues. Not far

distant the Sea of Humours, Mare Humorum, a little basin of 44,200

square leagues only, was situated in south latitude 25°, and east

longitude 40°. Lastly, three gulfs lie on the coast of this

hemisphere--the Torrid Gulf, the Gulf of Dew, and the Gulf of Iris,

little plains inclosed by high chains of mountains.

The "Feminine" hemisphere, naturally more capricious, was distinguished

by smaller and more numerous seas. These were, towards the north, the

Mare Frigoris, in north latitude 55° and longitude 0°, with 76,000

square leagues of surface, which joined the Lake of Death and Lake of

Dreams; the Sea of Serenity, Mare Serenitatis, by north latitude 25°

and west longitude 20°, comprising a surface of 80,000 square leagues;

the Sea of Crises, Mare Crisium, round and very compact, in north

latitude 17° and west longitude 55°, a surface of 40,000 square leagues,

a veritable Caspian buried in a girdle of mountains. Then on the

equator, in north latitude 5° and west longitude 25°, appeared the Sea

of Tranquillity, Mare Tranquillitatis, occupying 121,509 square

leagues of surface; this sea communicated on the south with the Sea of

Nectar, Mare Nectaris, an extent of 28,800 square leagues, in south

latitude 15° and west longitude 35°, and on the east with the Sea of

Fecundity, Mare Fecunditatis, the vastest in this hemisphere,

occupying 219,300 square leagues, in south latitude 3° and west

longitude 50°. Lastly, quite to the north and quite to the south lie two

more seas, the Sea of Humboldt, Mare Humboldtianum, with a surface of

6,500 square leagues, and the Southern Sea, Mare Australe, with a

surface of 26,000.

In the centre of the lunar disc, across the equator and on the zero

meridian, lies the centre gulf, Sinus Medii, a sort of hyphen between

the two hemispheres.

Thus appeared to the eyes of Nicholl and Barbicane the surface always

visible of the earth's satellite. When they added up these different

figures they found that the surface of this hemisphere measured

4,738,160 square leagues, 3,317,600 of which go for volcanoes, chains of

mountains, amphitheatres, islands--in a word, all that seems to form the

solid portion of the globe--and 1,410,400 leagues for the seas, lake,

marshes, and all that seems to form the liquid portion, all of which was

perfectly indifferent to the worthy Michel.

It will be noticed that this hemisphere is thirteen and a-half times

smaller than the terrestrial hemisphere. And yet upon it selenographers

have already counted 50,000 craters. It is a rugged surface worthy of

the unpoetical qualification of "green cheese" which the English have

given it.

When Barbicane pronounced this disobliging name Michel Ardan gave a

bound.

"That is how the Anglo-Saxons of the 19th century treat the beautiful

Diana, the blonde Phoebe, the amiable Isis, the charming Astarte, the

Queen of Night, the daughter of Latona and Jupiter, the younger sister

of the radiant Apollo!"

CHAPTER XII - OROGRAPHICAL DETAILS.

It has already been pointed out that the direction followed by the

projectile was taking us towards the northern hemisphere of the moon.

The travellers were far from that central point which they ought to have

touched if their trajectory had not suffered an irremediable deviation.

It was half-past twelve at night. Barbicane then estimated his distance

at 1,400 kilometres, a distance rather greater than the length of the

lunar radius, and which must diminish as he drew nearer the North Pole.

The projectile was then not at the altitude of the equator, but on the

tenth parallel, and from that latitude carefully observed on the map as

far as the Pole, Barbicane and his two companions were able to watch the

moon under the most favourable circumstances.

In fact, by using telescopes, this distance of 1,400 kilometres was

reduced to fourteen miles, or four and a-half leagues. The telescope of

the Rocky Mountains brought the moon still nearer, but the terrestrial

atmosphere singularly lessened its optical power. Thus Barbicane, in his

projectile, by looking through his glass, could already perceive certain

details almost imperceptible to observers on the earth.

"My friends," then said the president in a grave voice, "I do not know

where we are going, nor whether we shall ever see the terrestrial globe

again. Nevertheless, let us do our work as if one day it would be of use

to our fellow-creatures. Let us keep our minds free from all

preoccupation. We are astronomers. This bullet is the Cambridge

Observatory transported into space. Let us make our observations."

That said, the work was begun with extreme precision, and it faithfully

reproduced the different aspects of the moon at the variable distances

which the projectile reached in relation to that orb.

Whilst the bullet was at the altitude of the 10th north parallel it

seemed to follow the 20th degree of east longitude.

Here may be placed an important remark on the subject of the map which

they used for their observations. In the selenographic maps, where, on

account of the reversal of objects by the telescope, the south is at the

top and the north at the bottom, it seems natural that the east should

be on the left and the west on the right. However, it is not so. If the

map were turned upside down, and showed the moon as she appears, the

east would be left and the west right, the inverse of the terrestrial

maps. The reason of this anomaly is the following:--Observers situated

in the northern hemisphere--in Europe, for example--perceive the moon in

the south from them. When they look at her they turn their backs to the

north, the opposite position they take when looking at a terrestrial

map. Their backs being turned to the north, they have the east to the

left and the west to the right. For observers in the southern

hemisphere--in Patagonia, for example--the west of the moon would be on

their left and the east on their right, for the south would be behind

them.

Such is the reason for the apparent reversal of these two cardinal

points, and this must be remembered whilst following the observations of

President Barbicane.

Helped by the Mappa Selenographica of Boeer and Moedler, the

travellers could, without hesitating, survey that portion of the disc in

the field of their telescopes.

"What are we looking at now?" asked Michel.

"At the northern portion of the Sea of Clouds," answered Barbicane. "We

are too far off to make out its nature. Are those plains composed of

dry sand, as the first astronomers believed? Or are they only immense

forests, according to the opinion of Mr. Waren de la Rue, who grants a

very low but very dense atmosphere to the moon? We shall find that out

later on. We will affirm nothing till we are quite certain."

"This Sea of Clouds is rather doubtfully traced upon the maps. It is

supposed that this vast plain is strewn with blocks of lava vomited by

the neighbouring volcanoes on its right side, Ptolemy, Purbach, and

Arzachel. The projectile was drawing sensibly nearer, and the summits

which close in this sea on the north were distinctly visible. In front

rose a mountain shining gloriously, the top of which seemed drowned in

the solar rays."

"That mountain is--?" asked Michel.

"Copernicus," answered Barbicane.

"Let us have a look at Copernicus," said Michel.

This mountain, situated in north latitude 9°, and east longitude 20°,

rises to a height of nearly 11,000 feet above the surface of the moon.

It is quite visible from the earth, and astronomers can study it with

ease, especially during the phase between the last quarter and the new

moon, because then shadows are thrown lengthways from east to west, and

allow the altitudes to be taken.

Copernicus forms the most important radiating system in the southern

hemisphere, according to Tycho Brahe. It rises isolated like a gigantic

lighthouse over that of the Sea of Clouds bordering on the Sea of

Tempests, and it lights two oceans at once with its splendid rays. Those

long luminous trails, so dazzling at full moon, made a spectacle without

an equal; they pass the boundary chains on the north, and stretch as far

as the Sea of Rains. At 1 a.m., terrestrial time, the projectile, like a

balloon carried into space, hung over this superb mountain.

Barbicane could perfectly distinguish its chief features. Copernicus is

comprehended in the series of annular mountains of the first order in

the division of the large amphitheatres. Like the mountains of Kepler

and Aristarchus, which overlook the Ocean of Tempests, it appears

sometimes like a brilliant point through the pale light, and used to be

taken for a volcano in activity. But it is only an extinct volcano, like

those on that side of the moon. Its circumference presented a diameter

of about twenty-two leagues. The glasses showed traces of

stratifications in it produced by successive eruptions, and its

neighbourhood appeared strewn with volcanic remains, which were still

seen in the crater.

"There exist," said Barbicane, "several sorts of amphitheatres an the

surface of the moon, and it is easy to see that Copernicus belongs to

the radiating class. If we were nearer it we should perceive the cones

which bristle in the interior, and which were formerly so many fiery

mouths. A curious arrangement, and one without exception on the lunar

disc, is presented on the interior surface of these amphitheatres, being

notably downward from the exterior plane, a contrary form to that which

terrestrial craters present. It follows, therefore, that the general

curvature at the bottom of these amphitheatres gives us fear of an

inferior diameter to that of the moon."

"What is the reason of this special arrangement?" asked Nicholl.

"It is not known," answered Barbicane.

"How splendidly it shines!" said Michel. "I think it would be difficult

to see a more beautiful spectacle!"

"What should you say, then," answered Barbicane, "if the chances of our

journey should take us towards the southern hemisphere?"

"Well, I should say it is finer still," replied Michel Ardan.

At that moment the projectile hung right over the amphitheatre. The

circumference of Copernicus formed an almost perfect circle, and its

steep ramparts were clearly defined. A second circular inclosure could

even be distinguished. A grey plain of wild aspect spread around on

which every relief appeared yellow. At the bottom of the amphitheatre,

as if in a jewel-case, sparkled for one instant two or three eruptive

cones like enormous dazzling gems. Towards the north the sides of the

crater were lowered into a depression which would probably have given

access to the interior of the crater.

As they passed above the surrounding plain Barbicane was able to note a

large number of mountains of slight importance, amongst others a little

circular mountain called "Gay-Lussac," more than twenty-three kilometres

wide. Towards the south the plain was very flat, without one elevation

or projection of the soil. Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as

the place where it borders on the Ocean of Tempests, it was like a

liquid surface agitated by a storm, of which the hills and hollows

formed a succession of waves suddenly coagulated. Over the whole of

this, and in all directions, ran the luminous trails which converged to

the summit of Copernicus. Some had a width of thirty kilometres over a

length that could not be estimated.

The travellers discussed the origin of these strange rays, but they

could not determine their nature any better than terrestrial observers.

"Why," said Nicholl, "may not these rays be simply the spurs of the

mountains reflecting the light of the sun more vividly?"

"No," answered Barbicane, "if it were so in certain conditions of the

moon they would throw shadows, which they do not."

In fact, these rays only appear when the sun is in opposition with the

moon, and they disappear as soon as its rays become oblique.

"But what explanation of these trails of light have been imagined?"

asked Michel, "for I cannot believe that savants would ever stop short

for want of explanation."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "Herschel has uttered an opinion, but he does

not affirm it."

"Never mind; what is his opinion?"

"He thought that these rays must be streams of cold lava which shone

when the sun struck them normally."

"That may be true, but nothing is less certain. However, if we pass

nearer to Tycho we shall be in a better position to find out the cause

of this radiation."

"What do you think that plain is like, seen from the height we are at?"

asked Michel.

"I don't know," answered Nicholl.

"Well, with all these pieces of lava, sharpened like spindles, it looks

like 'an immense game of spilikins,' thrown down pell-mell. We only want

a hook to draw them up."

"Be serious for once in your life," said Barbicane.

"I will be serious," replied Michel tranquilly, "and instead of

spilikins let us say they are bones. This plain would then be only an

immense cemetery upon which would repose the immortal remains of a

thousand distinct generations. Do you like that comparison better?"

"One is as good as the other," answered Barbicane.

"The devil! You are difficult to please," replied Michel.

"My worthy friend," resumed the prosaic Barbicane, "it does not matter

what it looks like when we don't know what it is."

"A good answer," exclaimed Michel; "that will teach me to argue with

savants."

In the meantime the projectile went with almost uniform speed round the

lunar disc. It may be easily imagined that the travellers did not dream

of taking a minute's rest. A fresh landscape lay before their eyes every

instant. About half-past one in the morning they caught a glimpse of the

summit of another mountain. Barbicane consulted his map, and recognised

Eratosthenes.

It was a circular mountain 4,500 metres high, one of those amphitheatres

so numerous upon the satellite. Barbicane informed his friends of

Kepler's singular opinion upon the formation of these circles.

According to the celebrated mathematician, these crateriform cavities

had been dug out by the hand of man.

"What for?" asked Nicholl.

"In order to preserve themselves from the ardour of the solar rays,

which strike the moon during fifteen consecutive days."

"The Selenites were not fools!" said Michel.

"It was a singular idea!" answered Nicholl. "But it is probable that

Kepler did not know the real dimensions of these circles, for digging

them would have been giants' labour, impracticable for Selenites."

"Why so, if the weight on the surface of the moon is six times less than

upon the surface of the earth?" said Michel.

"But if the Selenites are six times smaller?" replied Nicholl.

"And if there are no Selenites?" added Barbicane, which terminated the

discussion.

Eratosthenes soon disappeared from the horizon without the projectile

having been sufficiently near it to allow a rigorous observation. This

mountain separated the Apennines from the Carpathians.

In lunar orography, several chains of mountains have been distinguished

which are principally distributed over the northern hemisphere. Some,

however, occupy certain portions of the southern hemisphere.

The following is a list of these different chains, with their latitudes

and the height of their highest summits:--

deg.   deg.       metres.

Mounts Doerfel       84 to  0 S. lat.  7,603

"    Leibnitz      65 "   0   "      7,600

"    Rook          20 "  30   "      1,600

"    Altai         17 "  28   "      4,047

"    Cordilleras   10 "  20   "      3,898

"    Pyrenees       8 "  18   "      3,631

"    Oural          5 "  13   "        838

"    Alembert       4 "  10   "      5,847

"    Hoemus         8 "  21 N. lat.  2,021

"    Carpathians   15 "  19   "      1,939

"    Apennines     14 "  27   "      5,501

"    Taurus        21 "  28   "      2,746

"    Riphees       25 "  33   "      4,171

"    Hercynians    17 "  29   "      1,170

"    Caucasia      32 "  41   "      5,567

"    Alps          42 "  49   "      3,617

The most important of these different chains is that of the Apennines,

the development of which extends 150 leagues, and is yet inferior to

that of the great orographical movements of the earth. The Apennines run

along the eastern border of the Sea of Rains, and are continued on the

north by the Carpathians, the profile of which measures about 100

leagues.

The travellers could only catch a glimpse of the summit of these

Apennines which lie between west long. 10° and east long. 16°; but the

chain of the Carpathians was visible from 18° to 30° east long., and

they could see how they were distributed.

One hypothesis seemed to them very justifiable. Seeing that this chain

of the Carpathians was here and there circular in form and with high

peaks, they concluded that it anciently formed important amphitheatres.

These mountainous circles must have been broken up by the vast cataclysm

to which the Sea of Rains was due. These Carpathians looked then what

the amphitheatres of Purbach, Arzachel, and Ptolemy would if some

cataclysm were to throw down their left ramparts and transform them into

continuous chains. They present an average height of 3,200 metres, a

height comparable to certain of the Pyrenees. Their southern slopes fall

straight into the immense Sea of Rains.

About 2 a.m. Barbicane was at the altitude of the 20th lunar parallel,

not far from that little mountain, 1,559 metres high, which bears the

name of Pythias. The distance from the projectile to the moon was only

1,200 kilometres, brought by means of telescopes to two and a half

leagues.

The "Mare Imbrium" lay before the eyes of the travellers like an immense

depression of which the details were not very distinct. Near them on the

left rose Mount Lambert, the altitude of which is estimated at 1,813

metres, and farther on, upon the borders of the Ocean of Tempests, in

north lat. 23° and east long. 29°, rose the shining mountain of Euler.

This mountain, which rises only 1,815 metres above the lunar surface,

has been the object of an interesting work by the astronomer Schroeter.

This savant, trying to find out the origin of the lunar mountains,

asked himself whether the volume of the crater always looked equal to

the volume of the ramparts that formed it. Now this he found to be

generally the case, and he hence concluded that a single eruption of

volcanic matter had sufficed to form these ramparts, for successive

eruptions would have destroyed the connection. Mount Euler alone was an

exception to this general law, and it must have taken several successive

eruptions to form it, for the volume of its cavity is double that of its

inclosure.

All these hypotheses were allowable to terrestrial observers whose

instruments were incomplete; but Barbicane was no longer contented to

accept them, and seeing that his projectile drew regularly nearer the

lunar disc he did not despair of ultimately reaching it, or at least of

finding out the secrets of its formation.

CHAPTER XIII - LUNAR LANDSCAPES.

At half-past two in the morning the bullet was over the 30th lunar

parallel at an effective distance of 1,000 kilometres, reduced by the

optical instruments to ten. It still seemed impossible that it could

reach any point on the disc. Its movement of translation, relatively

slow, was inexplicable to President Barbicane. At that distance from the

moon it ought to have been fast in order to maintain it against the

power of attraction. The reason of that phenomenon was also

inexplicable; besides, time was wanting to seek for the cause. The

reliefs on the lunar surface flew beneath their eyes, and they did not

want to lose a single detail.

The disc appeared through the telescopes at a distance of two and a half

leagues. If an aëronaut were taken up that distance from the earth, what

would he distinguish upon its surface? No one can tell, as the highest

ascensions have not exceeded 8,000 metres.

The following, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and

his companions saw from that height:--

Large patches of different colours appeared on the disc. Selenographers

do not agree about their nature. They are quite distinct from each

other. Julius Schmidt is of opinion that if the terrestrial oceans were

dried up, a Selenite observer could only tell the difference between the

terrestrial oceans and continental plains by patches of colour as

distinctly varied as those which a terrestrial observer sees upon the

moon. According to him, the colour common to the vast plains, known

under the name of "seas," is dark grey, intermingled with green and

brown. Some of the large craters are coloured in the same way.

Barbicane knew this opinion of the German selenographer; it is shared by

Messrs. Boeer and Moedler. He noticed that they were right, whilst

certain astronomers, who only allow grey colouring on the surface of the

moon, are wrong. In certain places the green colour was very vivid;

according to Julius Schmidt, it is so in the Seas of Serenity and

Humours. Barbicane likewise remarked the wide craters with no interior

cones, which are of a bluish colour, analogous to that of fresh-polished

sheets of steel. These colours really belonged to the lunar disc, and

did not result, as certain astronomers think, either from some

imperfection in the object-glasses of the telescopes or the

interposition of the terrestrial atmosphere. Barbicane had no longer any

doubt about it. He was looking at it through the void, and could not

commit any optical error. He considered that the existence of this

different colouring was proved to science. Now were the green shades

owing to tropical vegetation, kept up by a low and dense atmosphere? He

could not yet be certain.

Farther on he noticed a reddish tinge, quite sufficiently distinct. A

similar colour had already been observed upon the bottom of an isolated

inclosure, known under the name of the Lichtenberg Amphitheatre, which

is situated near the Hercynian Mountains, on the border of the moon. But

he could not make out its nature.

He was not more fortunate about another peculiarity of the disc, for he

could not find out its cause. The peculiarity was the following one:--

Michel Ardan was watching near the president when he remarked some long

white lines brilliantly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun. It was

a succession of luminous furrows, very different from the radiation that

Copernicus had presented. They ran in parallel lines.

Michel, with his usual readiness, exclaimed--

"Why, there are cultivated fields!"

"Cultivated fields!" repeated Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders.

"Ploughed fields, at all events," replied Michel Ardan. "But what

ploughmen these Selenites must be, and what gigantic oxen they must

harness to their ploughs, to make such furrows!"

"They are not furrows, they are crevices!"

"Crevices let them be," answered Michel with docility. "Only what do you

mean by crevices in the world of science?" Barbicane soon told his

companions all he knew about lunar crevices. He knew that they were

furrows observed upon all the non-mountainous parts of the lunar disc;

that these furrows, generally isolated, were from four to five leagues

only; that their width varies from 1,000 to 1,500 metres, and their

edges are rigorously parallel. But he knew nothing more about their

formation or their nature.

Barbicane watched these furrows through his telescope very attentively.

He noticed that their banks were exceedingly steep. They were long

parallel ramparts; with a little imagination they might be taken for

long lines of fortifications raised by Selenite engineers.

Some of these furrows were as straight as if they had been cut by line,

others were slightly curved through with edges still parallel. Some

crossed each other. Some crossed craters. Some furrowed the circular

cavities, such as Posidonius or Petavius. Some crossed the seas, notably

the Sea of Serenity.

These accidents of Nature had naturally exercised the imagination of

terrestrial astronomers. The earliest observations did not discover

these furrows. Neither Hevelius, Cassini, La Hire, nor Herschel seems to

have known them. It was Schroeter who in 1789 first attracted the

attention of savants to them. Others followed who studied them, such

as Pastorff, Gruithuysen, Boeer, and Moedler. At present there are

seventy-six; but though they have been counted, their nature has not yet

been determined. They are not fortifications certainly, anymore than

they are beds of dried-up rivers, for water so light on the surface of

the moon could not have dug such ditches, and there furrows often cross

craters at a great elevation.

It must, however, be acknowledged that Michel Ardan had an idea, and

that, without knowing it, he shared it with Julius Schmidt.

"Why," said he, "may not these inexplicable appearances be simply

phenomena of vegetation?"

"In what way do you mean?" asked Barbicane.

"Now do not be angry, worthy president," answered Michel, "but may not

these black lines be regular rows of trees?"

"Do you want to find some vegetation?" said Barbicane.

"I want to explain what you scientific men do not explain! My hypothesis

will at least explain why these furrows disappear, or seem to disappear,

at regular epochs."

"Why should they?"

"Because trees might become invisible when they lose their leaves, and

visible when they grow again."

"Your explanation is ingenious, old fellow," answered Barbicane, "but it

cannot be admitted."

"Why?"

"Because it cannot be said to be any season on the surface of the moon,

and, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation on the surface of the

moon cannot be produced."

In fact, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun there at

an almost equal altitude under every latitude. Above the equatorial

regions the radiant orb almost invariably occupies the zenith, and

hardly passes the limit of the horizon in the polar regions. Therefore,

in each region, according to its position, there reigns perpetual

spring, summer, autumn, or winter, as in the planet Jupiter, whose axis

is also slightly inclined upon its orbit.

The origin of these furrows is a difficult question to solve. They are

certainly posterior to the formation of the craters and amphitheatres,

for several have crossed them, and broken their circular ramparts. It

may be that they are contemporary with the latest geographical epochs,

and are only owing to the expansion of natural forces.

In the meantime the projectile had reached the altitude of the 40th

degree of lunar latitude at a distance that could not be greater than

800 kilometres. Objects appeared through the telescopes at two leagues

only. At this point rose under their feet the Helicon, 505 metres high,

and on the left were the mediocre heights, which inclose a small portion

of the Sea of Rains under the name of the Gulf of Iris.

The terrestrial atmosphere ought to be 170 times more transparent than

it is in order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the

surface of the moon. But in the void the projectile was moving in no

fluid lay between the eye of the observer and the object observed. What

is more, Barbicane was at a less distance than the most powerful

telescopes, even that of Lord Rosse or the one on the Rocky Mountains,

could give. It was, therefore, in circumstances highly favourable for

solving the great question of the habitability of the moon. Yet the

solution of this question escaped him still. He could only distinguish

the deserted beds of the immense plains, and, towards the north, arid

mountains. No labour betrayed the hand of man. No ruin indicated his

passage. No agglomeration of animals indicated that life was developed

there, even in an inferior degree. There was no movement anywhere, no

appearance of vegetation anywhere. Of the three kingdoms represented on

the terrestrial globe, one only was represented on that of the

moon--viz., the mineral kingdom.

"So," said Michel Ardan, looking rather put out, "there is nobody after

all."

"No," answered Nicholl; "we have seen neither man, animal, nor tree as

yet. After all, if the atmosphere has taken refuge at the bottom of

cavities, in the interior of the amphitheatres, or even on the opposite

face of the moon, we cannot decide the question."

"Besides," added Barbicane, "even for the most piercing sight a man is

not visible at a distance of more than four miles. Therefore if there

are any Selenites they can see our projectile, but we cannot see them."

About 11 a.m., at the altitude of the 50th parallel, the distance was

reduced to 300 miles. On the left rose the capricious outlines of a

chain of mountains, outlined in full light. Towards the right, on the

contrary, was a large black hole like a vast dark and bottomless well

bored in the lunar soil.

That hole was the Black Lake, or Pluto, a deep circle from which the

earth could be conveniently studied between the last quarter and the new

moon, when the shadows are thrown from west to east.

This black colour is rarely met with on the surface of the satellite. It

has, as yet, only been seen in the depths of the circle of Endymion, to

the east of the Cold Sea, in the northern hemisphere, and at the bottom

of the circle of Grimaldi upon the equator towards the eastern border of

the orb.

Pluto is a circular mountain, situated in north lat. 51° and east long.

9°. Its circle is fifty miles long and thirty wide. Barbicane regretted

not passing perpendicularly over this vast opening. There was an abyss

to see, perhaps some mysterious phenomenon to become acquainted with.

But the course of the projectile could not be guided. There was nothing

to do but submit. A balloon could not be guided, much less a projectile

when you are inside.

About 5 a.m. the northern limit of the Sea of Rains was at last passed.

Mounts La Condamine and Fontenelle remained, the one on the left, the

other on the right. That part of the disc, starting from the 60th

degree, became absolutely mountainous. The telescopes brought it to

within one league, an inferior distance to that between the summit of

Mont Blanc and the sea level. All this region was bristling with peaks

and amphitheatres. Mount Philolaus rose about the 70th degree to a

height of 3,700 metres, opening an elliptical crater sixteen leagues

long and four wide.

Then the disc, seen from that distance, presented an exceedingly strange

aspect. The landscapes were very different to earthly ones, and also

very inferior.

The moon having no atmosphere, this absence of vaporous covering had

consequences already pointed out. There is no twilight on its surface,

night following day and day following night, with the suddenness of a

lamp extinguished or lighted in profound darkness. There is no

transition from cold to heat: the temperature falls in one instant from

boiling water heat to the cold of space.

Another consequence of this absence of air is the following:--Absolute

darkness reigns where the sun's rays do not penetrate. What is called

diffused light upon the earth, the luminous matter that the air holds

in suspension, which creates twilights and dawns, which produces

shadows, penumbrae, and all the magic of the chiaro-oscuro, does not

exist upon the moon. Hence the harshness of contrasts that only admit

two colours, black and white. If a Selenite shades his eyes from the

solar rays the sky appears absolutely dark, and the stars shine as in

the darkest nights.

The impression produced on Barbicane and his two friends by this strange

state of things may well be imagined. They did not know how to use their

eyes. They could no longer seize the respective distances in

perspective. A lunar landscape, which does not soften the phenomenon of

the chiaro-oscuro, could not be painted by a landscape-painter of the

earth. It would be nothing but blots of ink upon white paper.

This aspect of things did not alter even when the projectile, then at

the altitude of the 80th degree, was only separated from the moon by a

distance of fifty miles, not even when, at 5 a.m., it passed at less

than twenty-five miles from the mountain of Gioja, a distance which the

telescopes reduced to half-a-mile. It seemed as if they could have

touched the moon. It appeared impossible that before long the projectile

should not knock against it, if only at the North Pole, where the

brilliant mountains were clearly outlined against the dark background of

the sky. Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the port-lights and jump

upon the lunar surface. What was a fall of twelve leagues? He thought

nothing of that. It would, however, have been a useless attempt, for if

the projectile was not going to reach any point on the satellite, Michel

would have been hurled along by its movement, and not have reached it

either.

At that moment, 6 a.m., the lunar pole appeared. Only half the disc,

brilliantly lighted, appeared to the travellers, whilst the other half

disappeared in the darkness. The projectile suddenly passed the line of

demarcation between intense light and absolute darkness, and was

suddenly plunged into the profoundest night.

CHAPTER XIV - A NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND A HALF.

At the moment this phenomenon took place the projectile was grazing the

moon's North Pole, at less that twenty-five miles' distance. A few

seconds had, therefore, sufficed to plunge it into the absolute darkness

of space. The transition had taken place so rapidly, without gradations

of light or attenuation of the luminous undulations, that the orb seemed

to have been blown out by a powerful gust.

"The moon has melted, disappeared!" cried Michel Ardan, wonder-stricken.

In fact, no ray of light or shade had appeared on the disc, formerly so

brilliant. The obscurity was complete, and rendered deeper still by the

shining of the stars. It was the darkness of lunar night, which lasts

354 hours and a half on each point of the disc--a long night, the result

of the equality of the movements of translation and rotation of the

moon, the one upon herself, the other round the earth. The projectile in

the satellite's cone of shadow was no longer under the action of the

solar rays.

In the interior darkness was, therefore, complete. The travellers could

no longer see one another. Hence came the necessity to lighten this

darkness. However desirous Barbicane might be to economise the gas, of

which he had so small a reserve, he was obliged to have recourse to it

for artificial light--an expensive brilliancy which the sun then

refused.

"The devil take the radiant orb!" cried Michel Ardan; "he is going to

force us to spend our gas instead of giving us his rays for nothing."

"We must not accuse the sun," said Nicholl. "It is not his fault, it is

the moon's fault for coming and putting herself like a screen between us

and him."

"It's the sun!" said Michel again.

"It's the moon!" retorted Nicholl.

An idle dispute began, which Barbicane put an end to by saying--

"My friends, it is neither the fault of the sun nor the moon. It is the

projectile's fault for deviating from its course instead of rigorously

following it. Or, to be juster still, it is the fault of that

unfortunate asteroid which so deplorably altered our first direction."

"Good!" answered Michel Ardan; "as that business is settled let us have

our breakfast. After a night entirely passed in making observations, we

want something to set us to rights a little."

This proposition met with no contradiction. Michel prepared the repast

in a few minutes. But they ate for the sake of eating. They drank

without toasts or hurrahs. The bold travellers, borne away into the

darkness of space without their accustomed escort of rays, felt a vague

uneasiness invade their hearts. The "farouche" darkness, so dear to the

pen of Victor Hugo, surrounded them on all sides.

In the meantime they talked about this interminable night, 354 hours, or

nearly 15 days, long, which physical laws have imposed upon the

inhabitants of the moon. Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of

the causes and consequences of this curious phenomenon.

"Curious it certainly is," said he, "for if each hemisphere of the moon

is deprived of solar light for fifteen days, the one over which we are

moving at this moment does not even enjoy, during its long night, a

sight of the brilliantly-lighted earth. In a word, there is no moon,

applying that qualification to our spheroid, except for one side of the

disc. Now, if it was the same upon earth--if, for example, Europe never

saw the moon, and she was only visible at the antipodes--you can figure

to yourselves the astonishment of a European on arriving in Australia."

"They would make the voyage for nothing but to go and see the moon,"

answered Michel.

"Well," resumed Barbicane, "that astonishment is reserved to the

Selenite who inhabits the opposite side of the moon to the earth, a side

for ever invisible to our fellow-beings of the terrestrial globe."

"And which we should have seen," added Nicholl, "if we had arrived here

at the epoch when the moon is new--that is to say, a fortnight later."

"To make amends," resumed Barbicane, "an inhabitant of the visible face

is singularly favoured by Nature to the detriment on the invisible face.

The latter, as you see, has dark nights of 354 hours long, without a ray

of light to penetrate the obscurity. The other, on the contrary, when

the sun, which has lighted him for a fortnight, sets under the horizon,

sees on the opposite horizon a splendid orb rise. It is the earth,

thirteen times larger than that moon which we know--the earth, which is

developed to a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen

times greater, which no atmosphere qualifies; the earth, which only

disappears when the sun reappears."

"A fine sentence," said Michel Ardan; "rather academical perhaps."

"It follows," resumed Barbicane, nowise put out, "that the visible face

of the disc must be very agreeable to inhabit, as it is always lighted

by the sun or the moon."

"But," said Nicholl, "this advantage must be quite compensated by the

unbearable heat which this light must cause."

"This inconvenience is the same under two faces, for the light reflected

by the earth is evidently deprived of heat. However, this invisible face

is still more deprived of heat than the visible face. I say that for

you, Nicholl; Michel would probably not understand."

"Thank you," said Michel.

"In fact," resumed Barbicane, "when the invisible face receives the

solar light and heat the moon is new--that is to say, that she is in

conjunction, that she is situated between the sun and the earth. She is

then, on account of the situation which she occupies in opposition when

she is full, nearer the sun by the double of her distance from the

earth. Now this distance may be estimated at the two-hundredth part of

that which separates the sun and the earth; or, in round numbers, at two

hundred thousand leagues. Therefore this visible face is nearer the sun

by two hundred thousand leagues when it receives his rays."

"Quite right," replied Nicholl.

"Whilst--" resumed Barbicane.

"Allow me," said Michel, interrupting his grave companion.

"What do you want?"

"I want to go on with the explanation."

"Why?"

"To prove that I have understood."

"Go on, then," said Barbicane, smiling.

"Whilst," said Michel, imitating the tone and gestures of President

Barbicane, "when the visible face of the moon is lighted by the sun the

moon is full--that is to say, situated with regard to the earth the

opposite to the sun. The distance which separates it from the radiant

orb is then increased in round numbers by 200,000 leagues, and the heat

which it receives must be rather less."

"Well done!" exclaimed Barbicane. "Do you know, Michel, for an artist

you are intelligent."

"Yes," answered Michel carelessly, "we are all intelligent on the

Boulevard des Italiens."

Barbicane shook hands gravely with his amiable companion, and went on

enumerating the few advantages reserved to the inhabitants of the

visible face.

Amongst others he quoted the observations of the sun's eclipses, which

can only be seen from one side of the lunar disc, because the moon must

be in opposition before they can take place. These eclipses, caused by

the interposition of the earth between the sun and the moon, may last

two hours, during which, on account of the rays refracted by its

atmosphere, the terrestrial globe can only appear like a black spot upon

the sun.

"Then," said Nicholl, "the invisible hemisphere is very ill-treated by

Nature."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "but not the whole of it. By a certain

movement of liberation, a sort of balancing on its centre, the moon

presents more than the half of her disc to the earth. She is like a

pendulum, the centre of gravity of which is towards the terrestrial

globe, and which oscillates regularly. Whence comes that oscillation?

Because her movement of rotation on her axis is animated with uniform

velocity, whilst her movement of translation, following an elliptical

orb round the earth, is not. At the perigee the velocity of translation

is greater, and the moon shows a certain portion of her western border.

At her apogee the velocity of rotation is greater, and a morsel of her

eastern border appears. It is a strip of about eight degrees, which

appears sometimes on the west, sometimes on the east. The result is,

therefore, that of a thousand parts the moon shows five hundred and

sixty-nine."

"No matter," answered Michel; "if we ever become Selenites, we will

inhabit the visible face. I like light."

"Unless," replied Nicholl, "the atmosphere should be condensed on the

other side, as certain astronomers pretend."

"That is a consideration," answered Michel simply.

In the meantime breakfast was concluded, and the observers resumed their

posts. They tried to see through the dark port-light by putting out all

light in the projectile. But not one luminous atom penetrated the

obscurity.

One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. How was it that though the

projectile had been so near the moon, within a distance of twenty-five

miles, it had not fallen upon her? If its speed had been enormous, he

would have understood why it had not fallen. But with a relatively

slight speed the resistance to lunar attraction could not be explained.

Was the projectile under the influence of some strange force? Did some

body maintain it in the ether? It was henceforth evident that it would

not touch any point upon the moon. Where was it going? Was it going

farther away from or nearer to the disc? Was it carried along in the

gloom across infinitude? How were they to know, how calculate in the

dark? All these questions made Barbicane anxious, but he could not solve

them.

In fact, the invisible orb was there, perhaps, at a distance of some

leagues only, but neither his companions nor he could any longer see it.

If any noise was made on its surface they could not hear it. The air,

that vehicle of transmission, was wanting to convey to them the groans

of that moon which the Arabian legends make "a man already half-granite,

but still palpitating."

It will be agreed that it was enough to exasperate the most patient

observers. It was precisely the unknown hemisphere that was hidden from

their eyes. That face which a fortnight sooner or a fortnight later had

been, or would be, splendidly lighted up by the solar rays, was then

lost in absolute darkness. Where would the projectile be in another

fortnight? Where would the hazards of attraction have taken it? Who

could say?

It is generally admitted that the invisible hemisphere of the moon is,

by its constitution, absolutely similar to the visible hemisphere.

One-seventh of it is seen in those movements of libration Barbicane

spoke of. Now upon the surface seen there were only plains and

mountains, amphitheatres and craters, like those on the maps. They could

there imagine the same arid and dead nature. And yet, supposing the

atmosphere to have taken refuge upon that face? Suppose that with the

air water had given life to these regenerated continents? Suppose that

vegetation still persists there? Suppose that animals people these

continents and seas? Suppose that man still lives under those conditions

of habitability? How many questions there were it would have been

interesting to solve! What solutions might have been drawn from the

contemplation of that hemisphere! What delight it would have been to

glance at that world which no human eye has seen!

The disappointment of the travellers in the midst of this darkness may

be imagined. All observation of the lunar disc was prevented. The

constellations alone were visible, and it must be acknowledged that no

astronomers, neither Faye, Chacornac, nor the Secchi, had ever been in

such favourable conditions to observe them.

In fact, nothing could equal the splendour of this starry world, bathed

in limpid ether. Diamonds set in the celestial vault threw out superb

flames. One look could take in the firmament from the Southern Cross to

the North Star, those two constellations which will in 12,000 years, on

account of the succession of equinoxes, resign their rôles of polar

stars, the one to Canopus in the southern hemisphere, the other to Wega

in the northern. Imagination lost itself in this sublime infinitude,

amidst which the projectile was moving like a new star created by the

hand of man. From natural causes these constellations shone with a soft

lustre; they did not twinkle because there was no atmosphere to

intervene with its strata unequally dense, and of different degrees of

humidity, which causes this scintillation.

The travellers long watched the constellated firmament, upon which the

vast screen of the moon made an enormous black hole. But a painful

sensation at length drew them from their contemplation. This was an

intense cold, which soon covered the glasses of the port-lights with a

thick coating of ice. The sun no longer warmed the projectile with his

rays, and it gradually lost the heat stored up in its walls. This heat

was by radiation rapidly evaporated into space, and a considerable

lowering of the temperature was the result. The interior humidity was

changed into ice by contact with the window-panes, and prevented all

observation.

Nicholl, consulting the thermometer, said that it had fallen to 17°

(centigrade) below zero (1° Fahr). Therefore, notwithstanding every

reason for being economical, Barbicane was obliged to seek heat as well

as light from gas. The low temperature of the bullet was no longer

bearable. Its occupants would have been frozen to death.

"We will not complain about the monotony of the journey," said Michel

Ardan. "What variety we have had, in temperature at all events! At times

we have been blinded with light, and saturated with heat like the

Indians of the Pampas! Now we are plunged into profound darkness amidst

boreal cold, like the Esquimaux of the pole! No, indeed! We have no

right to complain, and Nature has done many things in our honour!"

"But," asked Nicholl, "what is the exterior temperature?"

"Precisely that of planetary space," answered Barbicane.

"Then," resumed Michel Ardan, "would not this be an opportunity for

making that experiment we could not attempt when we were bathed in the

solar rays?"

"Now or never," answered Barbicane, "for we are usefully situated in

order to verify the temperature of space, and see whether the

calculations of Fourier or Pouillet are correct."

"Any way it is cold enough," said Michel. "Look at the interior humidity

condensing on the port-lights. If this fall continues the vapour of our

respiration will fall around us in snow."

"Let us get a thermometer," said Barbicane.

It will be readily seen that an ordinary thermometer would have given no

result under the circumstances in which it was going to be exposed. The

mercury would have frozen in its cup, for it does not keep liquid below

44° below zero. But Barbicane had provided himself with a spirit

thermometer, on the Walferdin system, which gives the minima of

excessively low temperature.

Before beginning the experiment this instrument was compared with an

ordinary thermometer, and Barbicane prepared to employ it.

"How shall we manage it?" asked Nicholl.

"Nothing is easier," answered Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss.

"Open the port-light rapidly, throw out the instrument; it will follow

the projectile with exemplary docility; a quarter of an hour after take

it in."

"With your hand?" asked Barbicane.

"With my hand," answered Michel.

"Well, then, my friend, do not try it," said Barbicane, "for the hand

you draw back will be only a stump, frozen and deformed by the frightful

cold."

"Really?"

"You would feel the sensation of a terrible burn, like one made with a

red-hot iron, for the same thing happens when heat is brutally

abstracted from our body as when it is inserted. Besides, I am not sure

that objects thrown out still follow us."

"Why?" said Nicholl.

"Because if we are passing through any atmosphere, however slightly

dense, these objects will be delayed. Now the darkness prevents us

verifying whether they still float around us. Therefore, in order not to

risk our thermometer, we will tie something to it, and so easily pull it

back into the interior."

Barbicane's advice was followed. Nicholl threw the instrument out of the

rapidly-opened port-light, holding it by a very short cord, so that it

could be rapidly drawn in. The window was only open one second, and yet

that one second was enough to allow the interior of the projectile to

become frightfully cold.

"Mille diables!" cried Michel Ardan, "it is cold enough here to freeze

white bears!"

Barbicane let half-an-hour go by, more than sufficient time to allow the

instrument to descend to the level of the temperature of space. The

thermometer was then rapidly drawn in.

Barbicane calculated the quantity of mercury spilt into the little phial

soldered to the lower part of the instrument, and said--

"One hundred and forty degrees centigrade below zero!" (218° Fahr.)

M. Pouillet was right, not Fourier. Such was the frightful temperature

of sidereal space! Such perhaps that of the lunar continents when the

orb of night loses by radiation all the heat which she absorbs during

the fifteen days of sunshine.

CHAPTER XV - HYPERBOLA OR PARABOLA.

Our readers will probably be astonished that Barbicane and his

companions were so little occupied with the future in store for them in

their metal prison, carried along in the infinitude of ether. Instead of

asking themselves where they were going, they lost their time in making

experiments, just as if they had been comfortably installed in their

own studies.

It might be answered that men so strong-minded were above such

considerations, that such little things did not make them uneasy, and

that they had something else to do than to think about their future.

The truth is that they were not masters of their projectile--that they

could neither stop it nor alter its direction. A seaman can direct the

head of his ship as he pleases; an aëronaut can give his balloon

vertical movement. They, on the contrary, had no authority over their

vehicle. No manoeuvre was possible to them. Hence their not troubling

themselves, or "let things go" state of mind.

Where were they at that moment, 8 a.m. during that day called upon earth

the sixth of December? Certainly in the neighbourhood of the moon, and

even near enough for her to appear like a vast black screen upon the

firmament. As to the distance which separated them, it was impossible to

estimate it. The projectile, kept up by inexplicable forces, has grazed

the north pole of the satellite at less than twenty-five miles'

distance. But had that distance increased or diminished since they had

been in the cone of shadow? There was no landmark by which to estimate

either the direction or the velocity of the projectile. Perhaps it was

going rapidly away from the disc and would soon leave the pure shadow.

Perhaps, on the contrary, it was approaching it, and would before long

strike against some elevated peak in the invisible atmosphere, which

would have terminated the journey, doubtless to the detriment of the

travellers.

A discussion began upon this subject, and Michel Ardan, always rich in

explanations, gave out the opinion that the bullet, restrained by lunar

attraction, would end by falling on the moon like an aërolite on to the

surface of the terrestrial globe.

"In the first place," answered Barbicane, "all aërolites do not fall

upon the surface of the earth; only a small proportion do so. Therefore,

if we are aërolites it does not necessarily follow that we shall fall

upon the moon."

"Still," answered Michel, "if we get near enough--"

"Error," replied Barbicane. "Have you not seen shooting stars by

thousands in the sky at certain epochs?"

"Yes."

"Well, those stars, or rather corpuscles, only shine by rubbing against

the atmospheric strata. Now, if they pass through the atmosphere, they

pass at less than 16 miles from our globe, and yet they rarely fall. It

is the same with our projectile. It may approach very near the moon, and

yet not fall upon it."

"But then," asked Michel, "I am curious to know how our vehicle would

behave in space."

"I only see two hypotheses," answered Barbicane, after some minutes'

reflection.

"What are they?"

"The projectile has the choice between two mathematical curves, and it

will follow the one or the other according to the velocity with which it

is animated, and which I cannot now estimate."

"Yes, it will either describe a parabola or an hyperbola."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "with some speed it will describe a parabola,

and with greater speed an hyperbola."

"I like those grand words!" exclaimed Michel Ardan. "I know at once what

you mean. And what is your parabola, if you please?"

"My friend," answered the captain, "a parabola is a conic section

arising from cutting a cone by a plane parallel to one of its sides."

"Oh!" said Michel in a satisfied tone.

"It is about the same trajectory that the bomb of a howitzer describes."

"Just so. And an hyperbola?" asked Michel.

"It is a curve formed by a section of a cone when the cutting plane

makes a greater angle with the base than the side of the cone makes."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Michel Ardan in the most serious tone, as if

he had been informed of a grave event. "Then remember this, Captain

Nicholl, what I like in your definition of the hyperbola--I was going to

say of the hyperhumbug--is that it is still less easy to understand than

the word you pretend to define."

Nicholl and Barbicane paid no attention to Michel Ardan's jokes. They

had launched into a scientific discussion. They were eager about what

curve the projectile would take. One was for the hyperbola, the other

for the parabola. They gave each other reasons bristling with x's.

Their arguments were presented in a language which made Michel Ardan

jump. The discussion was lively, and neither of the adversaries would

sacrifice his curve of predilection.

This scientific dispute was prolonged until Michel Ardan became

impatient, and said--

"I say, Messrs. Cosine, do leave off throwing your hyperbolas and

parabolas at one's head. I want to know the only interesting thing about

the business. We shall follow one or other of your curves. Very well.

But where will they take us to?"

"Nowhere," answered Nicholl.

"How nowhere?"

"Evidently they are unfinished curves, prolonged indefinitely!"

"Ah, savants! What does it matter about hyperbola or parabola if they

both carry us indefinitely into space?"

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing. They cared for art for

its own sake. Never had more useless question been discussed at a more

inopportune moment. The fatal truth was that the projectile, whether

hyperbolically or parabolically carried along, would never strike

against either the earth or the moon.

What would become of these bold travellers in the most immediate future?

If they did not die of hunger or thirst, they would in a few days, when

gas failed them, die for want of air, if the cold had not killed them

first!

Still, although it was so important to economise gas, the excessive

lowness of the surrounding temperature forced them to consume a certain

quantity. They could not do without either its light or heat. Happily

the caloric developed by the Reiset and Regnault apparatus slightly

elevated the temperature of the projectile, and without spending much

they could raise it to a bearable degree.

In the meantime observation through the port-lights had become very

difficult. The steam inside the bullet condensed upon the panes and

froze immediately. They were obliged to destroy the opacity of the glass

by constant rubbing. However, they could record several phenomena of the

highest interest.

In fact, if the invisible disc had any atmosphere, the shooting stars

would be seen passing through it. If the projectile itself passed

through the fluid strata, might it not hear some noise echoed--a storm,

for instance, an avalanche, or a volcano in activity? Should they not

see the intense fulgurations of a burning mountain? Such facts,

carefully recorded, would have singularly elucidated the obscure

question of the lunar constitution. Thus Barbicane and Nicholl, standing

like astronomers at their port-lights, watched with scrupulous patience.

But until then the disc remained mute and dark. It did not answer the

multifarious interrogations of these ardent minds.

This provoked from Michel a reflection that seemed correct enough.

"If ever we recommence our journey, we shall do well to choose the epoch

when the moon is new."

"True," answered Nicholl, "that circumstance would have been more

favourable. I agree that the moon, bathed in sunlight, would not be

visible during the passage, but on the other hand the earth would be

full. And if we are dragged round the moon like we are now, we should

at least have the advantage of seeing the invisible disc magnificently

lighted up."

"Well said, Nicholl," replied Michel Ardan. "What do you think about it,

Barbicane?"

"I think this," answered the grave president: "if ever we recommence

this journey, we shall start at the same epoch, and under the same

circumstances. Suppose we had reached our goal, would it not have been

better to find the continents in full daylight instead of dark night?

Would not our first installation have been made under better

circumstances? Yes, evidently. As to the invisible side, we could have

visited that in our exploring expeditions on the lunar globe. So,

therefore, the time of the full moon was well chosen. But we ought to

have reached our goal, and in order to have reached it we ought not to

have deviated from our road."

"There is no answer to make to that," said Michel Ardan. "Yet we have

passed a fine opportunity for seeing the moon! Who knows whether the

inhabitants of the other planets are not more advanced than the

savants of the earth on the subject of their satellites?"

The following answer might easily have been given to Michel Ardan's

remark:--Yes, other satellites, on account of their greater proximity,

have made the study of them easier. The inhabitants of Saturn, Jupiter,

and Uranus, if they exist, have been able to establish communication

with their moons much more easily. The four satellites of Jupiter

gravitate at a distance of 108,260 leagues, 172,200 leagues, 274,700

leagues, and 480,130 leagues. But these distances are reckoned from the

centre of the planet, and by taking away the radius, which is 17,000 to

18,000 leagues, it will be seen that the first satellite is at a much

less distance from the surface of Jupiter than the moon is from the

centre of the earth. Of the eight moons of Saturn, four are near. Diana

is 84,600 leagues off; Thetys, 62,966 leagues; Enceladus, 48,191

leagues; and lastly, Mimas is at an average distance of 34,500 leagues

only. Of the eighteen satellites of Uranus, the first, Ariel, is only

51,520 leagues from the planet.

Therefore, upon the surface of those three stars, an experiment

analogous to that of President Barbicane would have presented less

difficulties. If, therefore, their inhabitants have attempted the

enterprise, they have, perhaps, acquainted themselves with the

constitution of the half of the disc which their satellite hides

eternally from their eyes. But if they have never left their planet,

they do not know more about them than the astronomers of the earth.

In the meantime the bullet was describing in the darkness that

incalculable trajectory which no landmark allowed them to find out. Was

its direction altered either under the influence of lunar attraction or

under the action of some unknown orb? Barbicane could not tell. But a

change had taken place in the relative position of the vehicle, and

Barbicane became aware of it about 4 a.m.

The change consisted in this, that the bottom of the projectile was

turned towards the surface of the moon, and kept itself perpendicular

with its axis. The attraction or gravitation had caused this

modification. The heaviest part of the bullet inclined towards the

invisible disc exactly as if it had fallen towards it.

Was it falling then? Were the travellers at last about to reach their

desired goal? No. And the observation of one landmark, inexplicable in

itself, demonstrated to Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing

the moon, and that it was following an almost concentric curve.

This was a flash of light which Nicholl signalised all at once on the

limit of the horizon formed by the black disc. This point could not be

mistaken for a star. It was a reddish flame, which grew gradually

larger--an incontestable proof that the projectile was getting nearer

it, and not falling normally upon the surface of the satellite.

"A volcano! It is a volcano in activity!" exclaimed Nicholl--"an

eruption of the interior fires of the moon. That world, then, is not

quite extinguished."

"Yes, an eruption!" answered Barbicane, who studied the phenomenon

carefully through his night-glass. "What should it be if not a volcano?"

"But then," said Michel Ardan, "air is necessary to feed that

combustion, therefore there is some atmosphere on that part of the

moon."

"Perhaps so," answered Barbicane, "but not necessarily. A volcano, by

the decomposition of certain matters, can furnish itself with oxygen,

and so throw up flames into the void. It seems to me, too, that that

deflagration has the intensity and brilliancy of objects the combustion

of which is produced in pure oxygen. We must not be in a hurry to affirm

the existence of a lunar atmosphere."

The burning mountain was situated at the 45th degree of south latitude

on the invisible part of the disc. But to the great disappointment of

Barbicane the curve that the projectile described dragged it away from

the point signalised by the eruption, therefore he could not exactly

determine its nature. Half-an-hour after it had first been seen this

luminous point disappeared on the horizon. Still the authentication of

this phenomenon was a considerable fact in selenographic studies. It

proved that all heat had not yet disappeared from the interior of this

globe, and where heat exists, who may affirm that the vegetable kingdom,

or even the animal kingdom itself, has not until now resisted the

destructive influences? The existence of this volcano in eruption,

indisputably established by earthly savants, was favourable to the

theory of the habitability of the moon.

Barbicane became absorbed in reflection. He forgot himself in a mute

reverie, filled with the mysterious destinies of the lunar world. He was

trying to connect the facts observed up till then, when a fresh incident

recalled him suddenly to the reality.

This incident was more than a cosmic phenomenon; it was a threatening

danger, the consequences of which might be disastrous.

Suddenly in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness, an

enormous mass had appeared. It was like a moon, but a burning moon of

almost unbearable brilliancy, outlined as it was on the total obscurity

of space. This mass, of a circular form, threw such light that it filled

the projectile. The faces of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan,

bathed in its white waves, looked spectral, livid, blafard, like the

appearance produced by the artificial light of alcohol impregnated with

salt.

"The devil!" cried Michel Ardan. "How hideous we are! Whatever is that

wretched moon?"

"It is a bolis," answered Barbicane.

"A bolis, on fire, in the void?"

"Yes."

This globe of fire was indeed a bolis. Barbicane was not mistaken. But

if these cosmic meteors, seen from the earth, present an inferior light

to that of the moon, here, in the dark ether, they shone magnificently.

These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their own

incandescence. The surrounding air is not necessary to the deflagration.

And, indeed, if certain of these bodies pass through our atmosphere at

two or three leagues from the earth, others describe their trajectory at

a distance the atmosphere cannot reach. Some of these meteors are from

one to two miles wide, and move at a speed of forty miles a second,

following an inverse direction from the movement of the earth.

This shooting star suddenly appeared in the darkness at a distance of at

least 100 leagues, and measured, according to Barbicane's estimate, a

diameter of 2,000 metres. It moved with the speed of about thirty

leagues a minute. It cut across the route of the projectile, and would

reach it in a few minutes. As it approached it grew larger in an

enormous proportion.

If possible, let the situation of the travellers be imagined! It is

impossible to describe it. In spite of their courage, their

sang-froid, their carelessness of danger, they were mute, motionless,

with stiffened limbs, a prey to fearful terror. Their projectile, the

course of which they could not alter, was running straight on to this

burning mass, more intense than the open mouth of a furnace. They seemed

to be rushing towards an abyss of fire.

Barbicane seized the hands of his two companions, and all three looked

through their half-closed eyelids at the red-hot asteroid. If they still

thought at all, they must have given themselves up as lost!

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the bolis, two centuries of

agony, the projectile seemed about to strike against it, when the ball

of fire burst like a bomb, but without making any noise in the void,

where sound, which is only the agitation of the strata of air, could not

be made.

Nicholl uttered a cry. His companions and he rushed to the port-lights.

What a spectacle! What pen could describe it, what palette would be rich

enough in colours to reproduce its magnificence?

It was like the opening of a crater, or the spreading of an immense

fire. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up space with their fires.

Every size, colour, and shade were there. There were yellow, red, green,

grey, a crown of multi-coloured fireworks. There only remained of the

enormous and terrible globe pieces carried in all directions, each an

asteroid in its turn, some shining like swords, some surrounded by white

vapour, others leaving behind them a trail of cosmic dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed each other, knocked against each

other, and were scattered into smaller fragments, of which some struck

the projectile. Its left window was even cracked by the violent shock.

It seemed to be floating in a shower of bullets, of which the least

could annihilate it in an instant.

The light which saturated the ether was of incomparable intensity, for

these asteroids dispersed it in every direction. At a certain moment it

was so bright that Michel dragged Barbicane and Nicholl to the window,

exclaiming--

"The invisible moon is at last visible!"

And all three, across the illumination, saw for a few seconds that

mysterious disc which the eye of man perceived for the first time.

What did they distinguish across that distance which they could not

estimate? Long bands across the disc, veritable clouds formed in a very

restricted atmospheric medium, from which emerged not only all the

mountains, but every relief of middling importance, amphitheatres,

yawning craters, such as exist on the visible face. Then immense tracts,

no longer arid plains, but veritable seas, oceans which reflected in

their liquid mirror all the dazzling magic of the fires of space.

Lastly, on the surface of the continents, vast dark masses, such as

immense forests would resemble under the rapid illumination of a flash

of lightning.

Was it an illusion, an error of the eyes, an optical deception? Could

they give a scientific affirmation to that observation so superficially

obtained? Dared they pronounce upon the question of its habitability

after so slight a glimpse of the invisible disc?

By degrees the fulgurations of space gradually died out, its accidental

brilliancy lessened, the asteroids fled away by their different

trajectories, and went out in the distance. The ether resumed its

habitual darkness; the stars, for one moment eclipsed, shone in the

firmament, and the disc, of which scarcely a glimpse had been caught,

was lost in the impenetrable night.

CHAPTER XVI - THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, a danger quite

unforeseen. Who would have imagined such a meeting of asteroids? These

wandering bodies might prove serious perils to the travellers. They were

to them like so many rocks in the sea of ether, which, less fortunate

than navigators, they could not avoid. But did these adventurers of

space complain? No, as Nature had given them the splendid spectacle of a

cosmic meteor shining by formidable expansion, as this incomparable

display of fireworks, which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lighted for a

few seconds the invisible nimbus of the moon. During that rapid peep,

continents, seas, and forests had appeared to them. Then the atmosphere

did give there its life-giving particles? Questions still not solved,

eternally asked by American curiosity.

It was then 3.30 p.m. The bullet was still describing its curve round

the moon. Had its route again been modified by the meteor? It was to be

feared. The projectile ought, however to describe a curve imperturbably

determined by the laws of mechanics. Barbicane inclined to the opinion

that this curve would be a parabola and not an hyperbola. However, if

the parabola was admitted, the bullet ought soon to come out of the cone

of shadow thrown into the space on the opposite side to the sun. This

cone, in fact, is very narrow, the angular diameter of the moon is so

small compared to the diameter of the orb of day. Until now the

projectile had moved in profound darkness. Whatever its speed had

been--and it could not have been slight--its period of occultation

continued. That fact was evident, but perhaps that would not have been

the case in a rigidly parabolical course. This was a fresh problem which

tormented Barbicane's brain, veritably imprisoned as it was in a web of

the unknown which he could not disentangle.

Neither of the travellers thought of taking a minute's rest. Each

watched for some unexpected incident which should throw a new light on

their uranographic studies. About five o'clock Michel distributed to

them, by way of dinner, some morsels of bread and cold meat, which were

rapidly absorbed, whilst no one thought of leaving the port-light, the

panes of which were becoming incrusted under the condensation of vapour.

About 5.45 p.m., Nicholl, armed with his telescope, signalised upon the

southern border of the moon, and in the direction followed by the

projectile, a few brilliant points outlined against the dark screen of

the sky. They looked like a succession of sharp peaks with profiles in a

tremulous line. They were rather brilliant. The terminal line of the

moon looks the same when she is in one of her octants.

They could not be mistaken. There was no longer any question of a simple

meteor, of which that luminous line had neither the colour nor the

mobility, nor of a volcano in eruption. Barbicane did not hesitate to

declare what it was.

"The sun!" he exclaimed.

"What! the sun!" answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.

"Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself, lighting up the summit

of the mountains situated on the southern border of the moon. We are

evidently approaching the South Pole!"

"After having passed the North Pole," answered Michel. "Then we have

been all round our satellite."

"Yes, friend Michel."

"Then we have no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more open curves

to fear!"

"No, but a closed curve."

"Which is called--"

"An ellipsis. Instead of being lost in the interplanetary spaces it is

possible that the projectile will describe an elliptical orbit round the

moon."

"Really!"

"And that it will become its satellite."

"Moon of the moon," exclaimed Michel Ardan.

"Only I must tell you, my worthy friend, that we are none the less lost

men on that account!"

"No, but in another and much pleasanter way!" answered the careless

Frenchman, with his most amiable smile.

President Barbicane was right. By describing this elliptical orbit the

projectile was going to gravitate eternally round the moon like a

sub-satellite. It was a new star added to the solar world, a microcosm

peopled by three inhabitants, whom want of air would kill before long.

Barbicane, therefore, could not rejoice at the position imposed on the

bullet by the double influence of the centripetal and centrifugal

forces. His companions and he were again going to see the visible face

of the disc. Perhaps their existence would last long enough for them to

perceive for the last time the full earth superbly lighted up by the

rays of the sun! Perhaps they might throw a last adieu to the globe they

were never more to see again! Then their projectile would be nothing but

an extinct mass, dead like those inert asteroids which circulate in the

ether. A single consolation remained to them: it was that of seeing the

darkness and returning to light, it was that of again entering the zones

bathed by solar irradiation!

In the meantime the mountains recognised by Barbicane stood out more and

more from the dark mass. They were Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz, which

stand on the southern circumpolar region of the moon.

All the mountains of the visible hemisphere have been measured with

perfect exactitude. This perfection will, no doubt, seem astonishing,

and yet the hypsometric methods are rigorous. The altitude of the lunar

mountains may be no less exactly determined than that of the mountains

of the earth.

The method generally employed is that of measuring the shadow thrown by

the mountains, whilst taking into account the altitude of the sun at the

moment of observation. This method also allows the calculating of the

depth of craters and cavities on the moon. Galileo used it, and since

Messrs. Boeer and Moedler have employed it with the greatest success.

Another method, called the tangent radii, may also be used for measuring

lunar reliefs. It is applied at the moment when the mountains form

luminous points on the line of separation between light and darkness

which shine on the dark part of the disc. These luminous points are

produced by the solar rays above those which determine the limit of the

phase. Therefore the measure of the dark interval which the luminous

point and the luminous part of the phase leave between them gives

exactly the height of the point. But it will be seen that this method

can only be applied to the mountains near the line of separation of

darkness and light.

A third method consists in measuring the profile of the lunar mountains

outlined on the background by means of a micrometer; but it is only

applicable to the heights near the border of the orb.

In any case it will be remarked that this measurement of shadows,

intervals, or profiles can only be made when the solar rays strike the

moon obliquely in relation to the observer. When they strike her

directly--in a word, when she is full--all shadow is imperiously

banished from her disc, and observation is no longer possible.

Galileo, after recognising the existence of the lunar mountains, was the

first to employ the method of calculating their heights by the shadows

they throw. He attributed to them, as it has already been shown, an

average of 9,000 yards. Hevelius singularly reduced these figures, which

Riccioli, on the contrary, doubled. All these measures were exaggerated.

Herschel, with his more perfect instruments, approached nearer the

hypsometric truth. But it must be finally sought in the accounts of

modern observers.

Messrs. Boeer and Moedler, the most perfect selenographers in the whole

world, have measured 1,095 lunar mountains. It results from their

calculations that 6 of these mountains rise above 5,800 metres, and 22

above 4,800. The highest summit of the moon measures 7,603 metres; it

is, therefore, inferior to those of the earth, of which some are 1,000

yards higher. But one remark must be made. If the respective volumes of

the two orbs are compared the lunar mountains are relatively higher than

the terrestrial. The lunar ones form 1/70 of the diameter of the moon,

and the terrestrial only form 1/140 of the diameter of the earth. For a

terrestrial mountain to attain the relative proportions of a lunar

mountain, its perpendicular height ought to be 6-1/2 leagues. Now the

highest is not four miles.

Thus, then, to proceed by comparison, the chain of the Himalayas counts

three peaks higher than the lunar ones, Mount Everest, Kunchinjuga, and

Dwalagiri. Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz, on the moon, are as high as

Jewahir in the same chain. Newton, Casatus, Curtius, Short, Tycho,

Clavius, Blancanus, Endymion, the principal summits of Caucasus and the

Apennines, are higher than Mont Blanc. The mountains equal to Mont Blanc

are Moret, Theophylus, and Catharnia; to Mount Rosa, Piccolomini,

Werner, and Harpalus; to Mount Cervin, Macrobus, Eratosthenes,

Albateque, and Delambre; to the Peak of Teneriffe, Bacon, Cysatus,

Philolaus, and the Alps; to Mount Perdu, in the Pyrenees, Roemer and

Boguslawski; to Etna, Hercules, Atlas, and Furnerius.

Such are the points of comparison that allow the appreciation of the

altitude of lunar mountains. Now the trajectory followed by the

projectile dragged it precisely towards that mountainous region of the

southern hemisphere where rise the finest specimens of lunar orography.

CHAPTER XVII - TYCHO.

At 6 p.m. the projectile passed the South Pole at less than thirty

miles, a distance equal to that already reached at the North Pole. The

elliptical curve was, therefore, being rigorously described.

At that moment the travellers re-entered the beneficent sunshine. They

saw once more the stars moving slowly from east to west. The radiant orb

was saluted with a triple hurrah. With its light came also its heat,

which soon pierced the middle walls. The windows resumed their

accustomed transparency. Their "layer of ice" melted as if by

enchantment. The gas was immediately extinguished by way of economy. The

air apparatus alone was to consume its habitual quantity.

"Ah!" said Nicholl, "sunshine is good! How impatiently after their long

nights the Selenites must await the reappearance of the orb of day!"

"Yes," answered Michel Ardan, "imbibing, as it were, the brilliant

ether, light and heat, all life is in them."

At that moment the bottom of the projectile moved slightly from the

lunar surface in order to describe a rather long elliptical orbit. From

that point, if the earth had been full, Barbicane and his friends could

have seen it again. But, drowned in the sun's irradiation, it remained

absolutely invisible. Another spectacle attracted their eyes, presented

by the southern region of the moon, brought by the telescopes to within

half-a-mile. They left the port-lights no more, and noted all the

details of the strange continent.

Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz formed two separate groups stretching nearly

to the South Pole; the former group extends from the Pole to the 84th

parallel on the eastern part of the orb; the second, starting from the

eastern border, stretches from the 65th degree of latitude to the Pole.

On their capriciously-formed ridge appeared dazzling sheets of light

like those signalised by Father Secchi. With more certainty than the

illustrious Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to establish their

nature.

"It is snow," cried he.

"Snow?" echoed Nicholl.

"Yes, Nicholl, snow, the surface of which is profoundly frozen. Look how

it reflects the luminous rays. Cooled lava would not give so intense a

reflection. Therefore there is water and air upon the moon, as little as

you like, but the fact can no longer be contested."

No, it could not be, and if ever Barbicane saw the earth again his notes

would testify to this fact, important in selenographic observations.

These Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz arose in the midst of plains of

moderate extent, bounded by an indefinite succession of amphitheatres

and circular ramparts. These two chains are the only ones which are met

with in the region of amphitheatres. Relatively they are not very

broken, and only throw out here and there some sharp peaks, the highest

of which measures 7,603 metres.

The projectile hung high above all this, and the relief disappeared in

the intense brilliancy of the disc.

Then reappeared to the eyes of the travellers that original aspect of

the lunar landscapes, raw in tone, without gradation of colours, only

white and black, for diffused light was wanting. Still the sight of this

desolate world was very curious on account of its very strangeness. They

were moving above this chaotic region as if carried along by the breath

of a tempest, seeing the summits fly under their feet, looking down the

cavities, climbing the ramparts, sounding the mysterious holes. But

there was no trace of vegetation, no appearance of cities, nothing but

stratifications, lava streams, polished like immense mirrors, which

reflect the solar rays with unbearable brilliancy. There was no

appearance of a living world, everything of a dead one, where the

avalanches rolling from the summit of the mountains rushed noiselessly.

They had plenty of movement, but noise was wanting still.

Barbicane established the fact, by reiterated observation, that the

reliefs on the borders of the disc, although they had been acted upon

by different forces to those of the central region, presented a uniform

conformation. There was the same circular aggregation, the same

accidents of ground. Still it might be supposed that their arrangements

were not completely analogous. In the centre the still malleable crust

of the moon suffered the double attraction of the moon and the earth

acting in inverse ways according to a radius prolonged from one to the

other. On the borders of the disc, on the contrary, the lunar attraction

has been, thus to say, perpendicular with the terrestrial attraction. It

seems, therefore, that the reliefs on the soil produced under these

conditions ought to have taken a different form. Yet they had not,

therefore the moon had found in herself alone the principle of her

formation and constitution. She owed nothing to foreign influences,

which justified the remarkable proposition of Arago's, "No action

exterior to the moon has contributed to the production of her relief."

However that may be in its actual condition, this world was the image of

death without it being possible to say that life had ever animated it.

Michel Ardan, however, thought he recognised a heap of ruins, to which

he drew Barbicane's attention. It was situated in about the 80th

parallel and 30° longitude. This heap of stones, pretty regularly made,

was in the shape of a vast fortress, overlooking one of those long

furrows which served as river-beds in ante-historical times. Not far off

rose to a height of 5,646 metres the circular mountain called Short,

equal to the Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his habitual ardour,

maintained "the evidences" of his fortress. Below he perceived the

dismantled ramparts of a town; here the arch of a portico, still intact;

there two or three columns lying on their side; farther on a succession

of archpieces, which must have supported the conduct of an aqueduct; in

another part the sunken pillars of a gigantic bridge run into the

thickest part of the furrow. He distinguished all that, but with so much

imagination in his eyes, through a telescope so fanciful, that his

observation cannot be relied upon. And yet who would affirm, who would

dare to say, that the amiable fellow had not really seen what his two

companions would not see?

The moments were too precious to be sacrificed to an idle discussion.

The Selenite city, whether real or pretended, had disappeared in the

distance. The projectile began to get farther away from the lunar disc,

and the details of the ground began to be lost in a confused jumble. The

reliefs, amphitheatres, craters, and plains alone remained, and still

showed their boundary-lines distinctly.

At that moment there stretched to the left one of the finest

amphitheatres in lunar orography. It was Newton, which Barbicane easily

recognised by referring to the Mappa Selenographica.

Newton is situated in exactly 77° south lat. and 16° east long. It forms

a circular crater, the ramparts of which, 7,264 metres high, seemed to

be inaccessible.

Barbicane made his companions notice that the height of that mountain

above the surrounding plain was far from being equal to the depth of its

crater. This enormous hole was beyond all measurement, and made a gloomy

abyss, the bottom of which the sun's rays could never reach. There,

according to Humboldt, utter darkness reigns, which the light of the sun

and the earth could not break. The mythologists would have made it with

justice hell's mouth.

"Newton," said Barbicane, "is the most perfect type of the circular

mountains, of which the earth possesses no specimen. They prove that the

formation of the moon by cooling was due to violent causes, for whilst

under the influence of interior fire the reliefs were thrown up to

considerable heights, the bottom dropped in, and became lower than the

lunar level."

"I do not say no," answered Michel Ardan.

A few minutes after having passed Newton the projectile stood directly

over the circular mountain of Moret. It also passed rather high above

the summits of Blancanus, and about 7.30 p.m. it reached the

amphitheatre of Clavius.

This circle, one of the most remarkable on the disc, is situated in

south lat. 58° and east long. 15°. Its height is estimated at 7,091

metres. The travellers at a distance of 200 miles, reduced to two by the

telescopes, could admire the arrangement of this vast crater.

"The terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbicane, "are only molehills

compared to the volcanoes of the moon. Measuring the ancient craters

formed by the first eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, they are found to be

scarcely 6,000 metres wide. In France the circle of the Cantal measures

five miles; at Ceylon the circle of the island is forty miles, and is

considered the largest on the globe. What are these diameters compared

to that of Clavius, which we are over in this moment?"

"What is its width?" asked Nicholl.

"About seventy miles," answered Barbicane. "This amphitheatre is

certainly the largest on the moon, but many are fifty miles wide!"

"Ah, my friends," exclaimed Michel Ardan, "can you imagine what this

peaceful orb of night was once like? when these craters vomited torrents

of lava and stones, with clouds of smoke and sheets of flame? What a

prodigious spectacle formerly, and now what a falling off! This moon is

now only the meagre case of fireworks, of which the rockets, serpents,

suns, and wheels, after going off magnificently, only leave torn pieces

of cardboard. Who can tell the cause, reason, or justification of such

cataclysms?"

Barbicane did not listen to Michel Ardan. He was contemplating those

ramparts of Clavius, formed of wide mountains several leagues thick. At

the bottom of its immense cavity lay hundreds of small extinct craters,

making the soil like a sieve, and overlooked by a peak more than 15,000

feet high.

The plain around had a desolate aspect. Nothing so arid as these

reliefs, nothing so sad as these ruins of mountains, if so they may be

called, as those heaps of peaks and mountains encumbering the ground!

The satellite seemed to have been blown up in this place.

The projectile still went on, and the chaos was still the same. Circles,

craters, and mountains succeeded each other incessantly. No more plains

or seas--an interminable Switzerland or Norway. Lastly, in the centre of

the creviced region at its culminating point, the most splendid mountain

of the lunar disc, the dazzling Tycho, to which posterity still gives

the name of the illustrious Danish astronomer.

Whilst observing the full moon in a cloudless sky, there is no one who

has not remarked this brilliant point on the southern hemisphere. Michel

Ardan, to qualify it, employed all the metaphors his imagination could

furnish him with. To him Tycho was an ardent focus of light, a centre of

irradiation, a crater vomiting flames! It was the axle of a fiery wheel,

a sea-star encircling the disc with its silver tentacles, an immense eye

darting fire, a nimbo made for Pluto's head! It was a star hurled by the

hand of the Creator, and fallen upon the lunar surface!

Tycho forms such a luminous concentration that the inhabitants of the

earth can see it without a telescope, although they are at a distance of

100,000 leagues. It will, therefore, be readily imagined what its

intensity must have been in the eyes of observers placed at fifty

leagues only.

Across this pure ether its brilliancy was so unbearable that Barbicane

and his friends were obliged to blacken the object-glasses of their

telescopes with gas-smoke in order to support it. Then, mute, hardly

emitting a few admirative interjections, they looked and contemplated.

All their sentiments, all their impressions were concentrated in their

eyes, as life, under violent emotion, is concentrated in the heart.

Tycho belongs to the system of radiating mountains, like Aristarchus and

Copernicus. But it testified the most completely of all to the terrible

volcanic action to which the formation of the moon is due.

Tycho is situated in south lat. 43° and east long. 12°. Its centre is

occupied by a crater more than forty miles wide. It affects a slightly

elliptical form, and is inclosed by circular ramparts, which on the east

and west overlook the exterior plain from a height of 5,000 metres. It

is an aggregation of Mont Blancs, placed round a common centre, and

crowned with shining rays.

Photography itself could never represent what this incomparable

mountain, with all its projections converging to it and its interior

excrescences, is really like. In fact, it is during the full moon that

Tycho is seen in all its splendour. Then all shadows disappear, the

foreshortenings of perspective disappear, and all proofs come out

white--an unfortunate circumstance, for this strange region would have

been curious to reproduce with photographic exactitude. It is only an

agglomeration of holes, craters, circles, a vertiginous network of

crests. It will be understood, therefore, that the bubblings of this

central eruption have kept their first forms. Crystallised by cooling,

they have stereotyped the aspect which the moon formerly presented under

the influence of Plutonic forces.

The distance which separated the travellers from the circular summits of

Tycho was not so great that the travellers could not survey its

principal details. Even upon the embankment which forms the ramparts of

Tycho, the mountains hanging to the interior and exterior slopes rose in

stories like gigantic terraces. They appeared to be higher by 300 or 400

feet on the west than on the east. No system of terrestrial

castrametation could equal these natural fortifications. A town built at

the bottom of this circular cavity would have been utterly inaccessible.

Inaccessible and marvellously extended over this ground of picturesque

relief! Nature had not left the bottom of this crater flat and empty. It

possessed a special orography, a mountain system which made it a world

apart. The travellers clearly distinguished the cones, central hills,

remarkable movements of the ground, naturally disposed for the reception

of masterpieces of Selenite architecture. There was the place for a

temple, here for a forum, there the foundations of a palace, there the

plateau of a citadel, the whole overlooked by a central mountain 1,500

feet high--a vast circuit which would have held ancient Rome ten times

over.

"Ah!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, made enthusiastic by the sight, "what

grand towns could be built in this circle of mountains! A tranquil city,

a peaceful refuge, away from all human cares! How all misanthropes could

live there, all haters of humanity, all those disgusted with social

life!"

"All! It would be too small for them!" replied Barbicane simply.

CHAPTER XVIII - GRAVE QUESTIONS.

In the meantime the projectile had passed the neighbourhood of Tycho.

Barbicane and his two friends then observed, with the most scrupulous

attention, those brilliant radii which the celebrated mountain disperses

so curiously on every horizon.

What was this radiating aureole? What geological phenomenon had caused

those ardent beams? This question justly occupied Barbicane. Under his

eyes, in every direction, ran luminous furrows, with raised banks and

concave middle, some ten miles, others more than twenty miles wide.

These shining trails ran in certain places at least 300 leagues from

Tycho, and seemed to cover, especially towards the east, north-east, and

north, half the southern hemisphere. One of these furrows stretched as

far as the amphitheatre of Neander, situated on the 40th meridian.

Another went rounding off through the Sea of Nectar and broke against

the chain of the Pyrenees after a run of 400 leagues; others towards the

west covered with a luminous network the Sea of Clouds and the Sea of

Humours.

What was the origin of these shining rays running equally over plains

and reliefs, however high? They all started from a common centre, the

crater of Tycho. They emanated from it.

Herschel attributed their brilliant aspect to ancient streams of lava

congealed by the cold, an opinion which has not been generally received.

Other astronomers have seen in these inexplicable rays a kind of

moraines, ranges of erratic blocks thrown out at the epoch of the

formation of Tycho.

"And why should it not be so?" asked Nicholl of Barbicane, who rejected

these different opinions at the same time that he related them.

"Because the regularity of these luminous lines, and the violence

necessary to send them to such a distance, are inexplicable.

"Par bleu!" replied Michel Ardan. "I can easily explain to myself the

origin of these rays."

"Indeed," said Barbicane.

"Yes," resumed Michel. "Why should they not be the cracks caused by the

shock of a bullet or a stone upon a pane of glass?"

"Good," replied Barbicane, smiling; "and what hand would be powerful

enough to hurl the stone that would produce such a shock?"

"A hand is not necessary," answered Michel, who would not give in; "and

as to the stone, let us say it is a comet."

"Ah! comets?" exclaimed Barbicane; "those much-abused comets! My worthy

Michel, your explanation is not bad, but your comet is not wanted. The

shock might have come from the interior of the planet. A violent

contraction of the lunar crust whilst cooling was enough to make that

gigantic crack."

"Contraction let it be--something like a lunar colic," answered Michel

Ardan.

"Besides," added Barbicane, "that is also the opinion of an English

savant, Nasmyth, and it seems to me to explain the radiation of these

mountains sufficiently."

"That Nasmyth was no fool!" answered Michel.

The travellers, who could never weary of such a spectacle, long admired

the splendours of Tycho. Their projectile, bathed in that double

irradiation of the sun and moon, must have appeared like a globe of

fire. They had, therefore, suddenly passed from considerable cold to

intense heat. Nature was thus preparing them to become Selenites.

To become Selenites! That idea again brought up the question of the

habitability of the moon. After what they had seen, could the travellers

solve it? Could they conclude for or against? Michel Ardan asked his two

friends to give utterance to their opinion, and asked them outright if

they thought that humanity and animality were represented in the lunar

world.

"I think we cannot answer," said Barbicane, "but in my opinion the

question ought not to be stated in that form. I ask to be allowed to

state it differently."

"State it as you like," answered Michel.

"This is it," resumed Barbicane. "The problem is double, and requires a

double solution. Is the moon habitable? Has it been inhabited?"

"Right," said Nicholl. "Let us first see if the moon is habitable."

"To tell the truth, I know nothing about it," replied Michel.

"And I answer in the negative," said Barbicane. "In her actual state,

with her certainly very slight atmosphere, her seas mostly dried up, her

insufficient water, her restricted vegetation, her abrupt alternations

of heat and cold, her nights and days 354 hours long, the moon does not

appear habitable to me, nor propitious to the development of the animal

kingdom, nor sufficient for the needs of existence such as we understand

it."

"Agreed," answered Nicholl; "but is not the moon habitable for beings

differently organised to us?"

"That question is more difficult to answer," replied Barbicane. "I will

try to do it, however, but I ask Nicholl if movement seems to him the

necessary result of existence, under no matter what organisation?"

"Without the slightest doubt," answered Nicholl.

"Well, then, my worthy companion, my answer will be that we have seen

the lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards, and that nothing

appeared to be moving on the surface of the moon. The presence of no

matter what form of humanity would be betrayed by appropriations,

different constructions, or even ruins. What did we see? Everywhere the

geological work of Nature, never the work of man. If, therefore,

representatives of the animal kingdom exist upon the moon, they have

taken refuge in those bottomless cavities which the eye cannot reach.

And I cannot admit that either, for they would have left traces of their

passage upon the plains which the atmosphere, however slight, covers.

Now these traces are nowhere visible. Therefore the only hypothesis that

remains is one of living beings without movement or life."

"You might just as well say living creatures who are not alive."

"Precisely," answered Barbicane, "which for us has no meaning."

"Then now we may formulate our opinion," said Michel.

"Yes," answered Nicholl.

"Very well," resumed Michel Ardan; "the Scientific Commission, meeting

in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having supported its arguments

upon fresh facts lately observed, decides unanimously upon the question

of the habitability of the moon--'No, the moon is not inhabited.'"

This decision was taken down by Barbicane in his notebook, where he had

already written the procès-verbal of the sitting of December 6th.

"Now," said Nicholl, "let us attack the second question, depending on

the first. I therefore ask the honourable Commission if the moon is not

habitable, has it been inhabited?"

"Answer, Citizen Barbicane," said Michel Ardan.

"My friends," answered Barbicane, "I did not undertake this journey to

form an opinion upon the ancient habitability of our satellite. I may

add that my personal observations only confirm me in this opinion. I

believe, I even affirm, that the moon has been inhabited by a human race

organised like ours, that it has produced animals anatomically formed

like terrestrial animals; but I add that these races, human or animal,

have had their day, and are for ever extinct."

"Then," asked Michel, "the moon is an older world than the earth?"

"No," answered Barbicane with conviction, "but a world that has grown

old more quickly, whose formation and deformation have been more rapid.

Relatively the organising forces of matter have been much more violent

in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the celestial globe.

The actual state of this disc, broken up, tormented, and swollen, proves

this abundantly. In their origin the moon and the earth were only gases.

These gases became liquids under different influences, and the solid

mass was formed afterwards. But it is certain that our globe was gas or

liquid still when the moon, already solidified by cooling, became

habitable."

"I believe that," said Nicholl.

"Then," resumed Barbicane, "it was surrounded by atmosphere. The water

held in by the gassy element could not evaporate. Under the influence of

air, water, light, and heat, solar and central, vegetation took

possession of these continents prepared for its reception, and certainly

life manifested itself about that epoch, for Nature does not spend

itself in inutilities, and a world so marvellously habitable must have

been inhabited."

"Still," answered Nicholl, "many phenomena inherent to the movements of

our satellite must have prevented the expansion of the vegetable and

animal kingdoms. The days and nights 354 hours long, for example."

"At the terrestrial poles," said Michel, "they last six months."

"That is not a valuable argument, as the poles are not inhabited."

"In the actual state of the moon," resumed Barbicane, "the long nights

and days create differences of temperature insupportable to the

constitution, but it was not so at that epoch of historical times. The

atmosphere enveloped the disc with a fluid mantle. Vapour deposited

itself in the form of clouds. This natural screen tempered the ardour of

the solar lays, and retained the nocturnal radiation. Both light and

heat could diffuse themselves in the air. Hence there was equilibrium

between the influences which no longer exists now that the atmosphere

has almost entirely disappeared. Besides, I shall astonish you--"

"Astonish us?" said Michel Ardan.

"But I believe that at the epoch when the moon was inhabited the nights

and days did not last 354 hours!"

"Why so?" asked Nicholl quickly.

"Because it is very probable that then the moon's movement of rotation

on her axis was not equal to her movement of revolution, an equality

which puts every point of the lunar disc under the action of the solar

rays for fifteen days."

"Agreed," answered Nicholl; "but why should not these movements have

been equal, since they are so actually?"

"Because that equality has only been determined by terrestrial

attraction. Now, how do we know that this attraction was powerful enough

to influence the movements of the moon at the epoch the earth was still

fluid?"

"True," replied Nicholl; "and who can say that the moon has always been

the earth's satellite?"

"And who can say," exclaimed Michel Ardan, "that the moon did not exist

before the earth?"

Imagination began to wander in the indefinite field of hypotheses.

Barbicane wished to hold them in.

"Those," said he, "are speculations too high, problems really insoluble.

Do not let us enter into them. Let us only admit the insufficiency of

primordial attraction, and then by the inequality of rotation and

revolution days and nights could succeed each other upon the moon as

they do upon the earth. Besides, even under those conditions life was

possible."

"Then," asked Michel Ardan, "humanity has quite disappeared from the

moon?"

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "after having, doubtless, existed for

thousands of centuries. Then gradually the atmosphere becoming rarefied,

the disc will again be uninhabitable like the terrestrial globe will one

day become by cooling."

"By cooling?"

"Certainly," answered Barbicane. "As the interior fires became

extinguished the incandescent matter was concentrated and the lunar disc

became cool. By degrees the consequences of this phenomenon came

about--the disappearance of organic beings and the disappearance of

vegetation. Soon the atmosphere became rarefied, and was probably drawn

away by terrestrial attraction; the breathable air disappeared, and so

did water by evaporation. At that epoch the moon became uninhabitable,

and was no longer inhabited. It was a dead world like it is to-day."

"And you say that the like fate is reserved for the earth?"

"Very probably."

"But when?"

"When the cooling of its crust will have made it uninhabitable."

"Has the time it will take our unfortunate globe to melt been

calculated?"

"Certainly."

"And you know the reason?"

"Perfectly."

"Then tell us, sulky savant--you make me boil with impatience."

"Well, my worthy Michel," answered Barbicane tranquilly, "it is well

known what diminution of temperature the earth suffers in the lapse of a

century. Now, according to certain calculations, that average

temperature will be brought down to zero after a period of 400,000

years!"

"Four hundred thousand years!" exclaimed Michel. "Ah! I breathe again! I

was really frightened. I imagined from listening to you that we had only

fifty thousand years to live!"

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at their companion's

uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wanted to have done with it, reminded them

of the second question to be settled.

"Has the moon been inhabited?" he asked.

The answer was unanimously in the affirmative.

During this discussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories,

although it resumed the general ideas of science on the subject, the

projectile had run rapidly towards the lunar equator, at the same time

that it went farther away from the lunar disc. It had passed the circle

of Willem, and the 40th parallel, at a distance of 400 miles. Then

leaving Pitatus to the right, on the 30th degree, it went along the

south of the Sea of Clouds, of which it had already approached the

north. Different amphitheatres appeared confusedly under the white light

of the full moon--Bouillaud, Purbach, almost square with a central

crater, then Arzachel, whose interior mountain shone with indefinable

brilliancy.

At last, as the projectile went farther and farther away, the details

faded from the travellers' eyes, the mountains were confounded in the

distance, and all that remained of the marvellous, fantastical, and

wonderful satellite of the earth was the imperishable remembrance.

CHAPTER XIX - A STRUGGLE WITH THE IMPOSSIBLE.

For some time Barbicane and his companions, mute and pensive, looked at

this world, which they had only seen from a distance, like Moses saw

Canaan, and from which they were going away for ever. The position of

the projectile relatively to the moon was modified, and now its lower

end was turned towards the earth.

This change, verified by Barbicane, surprised him greatly. If the bullet

was going to gravitate round the satellite in an elliptical orbit, why

was not its heaviest part turned towards it like the moon to the earth?

There again was an obscure point.

By watching the progress of the projectile they could see that it was

following away from the moon an analogous curve to that by which it

approached her. It was, therefore, describing a very long ellipsis which

would probably extend to the point of equal attraction, where the

influences of the earth and her satellite are neutralised.

Such was the conclusion which Barbicane correctly drew from the facts

observed, a conviction which his two friends shared with him.

Questions immediately began to shower upon him.

"What will become of us after we have reached the neutral point?" asked

Michel Ardan.

"That is unknown!" answered Barbicane.

"But we can make suppositions, I suppose?"

"We can make two," answered Barbicane. "Either the velocity of the

projectile will then be insufficient, and it will remain entirely

motionless on that line of double attraction--"

"I would rather have the other supposition, whatever it is," replied

Michel.

"Or the velocity will be sufficient," resumed Barbicane, "and it will

continue its elliptical orbit, and gravitate eternally round the orb of

night."

"Not very consoling that revolution," said Michel, "to become the humble

servants of a moon whom we are in the habit of considering our servant.

And is that the future that awaits us?"

Neither Barbicane nor Nicholl answered.

"Why do you not answer?" asked the impatient Michel.

"There is nothing to answer," said Nicholl.

"Can nothing be done?"

"No," answered Barbicane. "Do you pretend to struggle with the

impossible?"

"Why not? Ought a Frenchman and two Americans to recoil at such a word?"

"But what do you want to do?"

"Command the motion that is carrying us along!"

"Command it?"

"Yes," resumed Michel, getting animated, "stop it or modify it; use it

for the accomplishment of our plans."

"And how, pray?"

"That is your business! If artillerymen are not masters of their bullets

they are no longer artillerymen. If the projectile commands the gunner,

the gunner ought to be rammed instead into the cannon! Fine savants,

truly! who don't know now what to do after having induced me--"

"Induced!" cried Barbicane and Nicholl. "Induced! What do you mean by

that?"

"No recriminations!" said Michel. "I do not complain. The journey

pleases me. The bullet suits me. But let us do all that is humanly

possible to fall somewhere, if only upon the moon."

"We should only be too glad, my worthy Michel," answered Barbicane, "but

we have no means of doing it."

"Can we not modify the motion of the projectile?"

"No."

"Nor diminish its speed?"

"No."

"Not even by lightening it like they lighten an overloaded ship?"

"What can we throw out?" answered Nicholl. "We have no ballast on board.

And besides, it seems to me that a lightened projectile would go on more

quickly."

"Less quickly," said Michel.

"More quickly," replied Nicholl.

"Neither more nor less quickly," answered Barbicane, wishing to make his

two friends agree, "for we are moving in the void where we cannot take

specific weight into account."

"Very well," exclaimed Michel Ardan in a determined tone; "there is only

one thing to do."

"What is that?" asked Nicholl.

"Have breakfast," imperturbably answered the audacious Frenchman, who

always brought that solution to the greatest difficulties.

In fact, though that operation would have no influence on the direction

of the projectile, it might be attempted without risk, and even

successfully from the point of view of the stomach. Decidedly the

amiable Michel had only good ideas.

They breakfasted, therefore, at 2 a.m., but the hour was not of much

consequence. Michel served up his habitual menu, crowned by an amiable

bottle out of his secret cellar. If ideas did not come into their heads

the Chambertin of 1863 must be despaired of.

The meal over, observations began again.

The objects they had thrown out of the projectile still followed it at

the same invariable distance. It was evident that the bullet in its

movement of translation round the moon had not passed through any

atmosphere, for the specific weight of these objects would have modified

their respective distances.

There was nothing to see on the side of the terrestrial globe. The earth

was only a day old, having been new at midnight the day before, and two

days having to go by before her crescent, disengaged from the solar

rays, could serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in her movement of

rotation each of her points always passes the same meridian of the moon

every twenty-four hours.

The spectacle was a different one on the side of the moon; the orb was

shining in all its splendour amidst innumerable constellations, the rays

of which could not trouble its purity. Upon the disc the plains again

wore the sombre tint which is seen from the earth. The rest of the

nimbus was shining, and amidst the general blaze Tycho stood out like a

sun.

Barbicane could not manage any way to appreciate the velocity of the

projectile, but reasoning demonstrated that this speed must be uniformly

diminishing in conformity with the laws of rational mechanics.

In fact, it being admitted that the bullet would describe an orbit round

the moon, that orbit must necessarily be elliptical. Science proves that

it must be thus. No mobile circulation round any body is an exception to

that law. All the orbits described in space are elliptical, those of

satellites round their planets, those of planets around their sun, that

of the sun round the unknown orb that serves as its central pivot. Why

should the projectile of the Gun Club escape that natural arrangement?

Now in elliptical orbits attracting bodies always occupy one of the foci

of the ellipsis. The satellite is, therefore, nearer the body round

which it gravitates at one moment than it is at another. When the earth

is nearest the sun she is at her perihelion, and at her aphelion when

most distant. The moon is nearest the earth at her perigee, and most

distant at her apogee. To employ analogous expressions which enrich the

language of astronomers, if the projectile remained a satellite of the

moon, it ought to be said that it is in its "aposelene" at its most

distant point, and at its "periselene" at its nearest.

In the latter case the projectile ought to attain its maximum of speed,

in the latter its minimum. Now it was evidently going towards its

"aposelene," and Barbicane was right in thinking its speed would

decrease up to that point, and gradually increase when it would again

draw near the moon. That speed even would be absolutely nil if the

point was coexistent with that of attraction.

Barbicane studied the consequences of these different situations; he was

trying what he could make of them when he was suddenly interrupted by a

cry from Michel Ardan.

"I'faith!" cried Michel, "what fools we are!"

"I don't say we are not," answered Barbicane; "but why?"

"Because we have some very simple means of slackening the speed that is

taking us away from the moon, and we do not use them."

"And what are those means?"

"That of utilising the force of recoil in our rockets."

"Ah, why not?" said Nicholl.

"We have not yet utilised that force, it is true," said Barbicane, "but

we shall do so."

"When?" asked Michel.

"When the time comes. Remark, my friends, that in the position now

occupied by the projectile, a position still oblique to the lunar disc,

our rockets, by altering its direction, might take it farther away

instead of nearer to the moon. Now I suppose it is the moon you want to

reach?"

"Essentially," answered Michel.

"Wait, then. Through some inexplicable influence the projectile has a

tendency to let its lower end fall towards the earth. It is probable

that at the point of equal attraction its conical summit will be

rigorously directed towards the moon. At that moment it may be hoped

that its speed will be nil. That will be the time to act, and under

the effort of our rockets we can, perhaps, provoke a direct fall upon

the surface of the lunar disc."

"Bravo!" said Michel.

"We have not done it yet, and we could not do it as we passed the

neutral point, because the projectile was still animated with too much

velocity."

"Well reasoned out," said Nicholl.

"We must wait patiently," said Barbicane, "and put every chance on our

side; then, after having despaired so long, I again begin to think we

shall reach our goal."

This conclusion provoked hurrahs from Michel Ardan. No one of these

daring madmen remembered the question they had all answered in the

negative--No, the moon is not inhabited! No, the moon is probably not

inhabitable! And yet they were going to do all they could to reach it.

One question only now remained to be solved: at what precise moment

would the projectile reach that point of equal attraction where the

travellers would play their last card?

In order to calculate that moment to within some seconds Barbicane had

only to have recourse to his travelling notes, and to take the different

altitudes from lunar parallels. Thus the time employed in going over the

distance between the neutral point and the South Pole must be equal to

the distance which separates the South Pole from the neutral point. The

hours representing the time it took were carefully noted down, and the

calculation became easy.

Barbicane found that this point would be reached by the projectile at 1

a.m. on the 8th of December. It was then 3 a.m. on the 7th of December.

Therefore, if nothing intervened, the projectile would reach the neutral

point in twenty-two hours.

The rockets had been put in their places to slacken the fall of the

bullet upon the moon, and now the bold fellows were going to use them to

provoke an exactly contrary effect. However that may be, they were

ready, and there was nothing to do but await the moment for setting fire

to them.

"As there is nothing to do," said Nicholl, "I have a proposition to

make."

"What is that?" asked Barbicane.

"I propose we go to sleep."

"That is a nice idea!" exclaimed Michel Ardan.

"It is forty hours since we have closed our eyes," said Nicholl. "A few

hours' sleep would set us up again."

"Never!" replied Michel.

"Good," said Nicholl; "every man to his humour--mine is to sleep."

And lying down on a divan, Nicholl was soon snoring like a forty-eight

pound bullet.

"Nicholl is a sensible man," said Barbicane soon. "I shall imitate him."

A few minutes after he was joining his bass to the captain's baritone.

"Decidedly," said Michel Ardan, when he found himself alone, "these

practical people sometimes do have opportune ideas."

And stretching out his long legs, and folding his long arms under his

head, Michel went to sleep too.

But this slumber could neither be durable nor peaceful. Too many

preoccupations filled the minds of these three men, and a few hours

after, at about 7 a.m., they all three awoke at once.

The projectile was still moving away from the moon, inclining its

conical summit more and more towards her. This phenomenon was

inexplicable at present, but it fortunately aided the designs of

Barbicane.

Another seventeen hours and the time for action would have come.

That day seemed long. However bold they might be, the travellers felt

much anxiety at the approach of the minute that was to decide

everything, either their fall upon the moon or their imprisonment in an

immutable orbit. They therefore counted the hours, which went too slowly

for them, Barbicane and Nicholl obstinately plunged in calculations,

Michel walking up and down the narrow space between the walls

contemplating with longing eye the impassible moon.

Sometimes thoughts of the earth passed through their minds. They saw

again their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of them all, J.T.

Maston. At that moment the honourable secretary must have been occupying

his post on the Rocky Mountains. If he should perceive the projectile

upon the mirror of his gigantic telescope what would he think? After

having seen it disappear behind the south pole of the moon, they would

see it reappear at the north! It was, therefore, the satellite of a

satellite! Had J.T. Maston sent that unexpected announcement into the

world? Was this to be the dénouement of the great enterprise?

Meanwhile the day passed without incident. Terrestrial midnight came.

The 8th of December was about to commence. Another hour and the point of

equal attraction would be reached. What velocity then animated the

projectile? They could form no estimate; but no error could vitiate

Barbicane's calculations. At 1 a.m. that velocity ought to be and would

be nil.

Besides, another phenomenon would mark the stopping point of the

projectile on the neutral line. In that spot the two attractions,

terrestrial and lunar, would be annihilated. Objects would not weigh

anything. This singular fact, which had so curiously surprised Barbicane

and his companions before, must again come about under identical

circumstances. It was at that precise moment they must act.

The conical summit of the bullet had already sensibly turned towards the

lunar disc. The projectile was just right for utilising all the recoil

produced by setting fire to the apparatus. Chance was therefore in the

travellers' favour. If the velocity of the projectile were to be

absolutely annihilated upon the neutral point, a given motion, however

slight, towards the moon would determine its fall.

"Five minutes to one," said Nicholl.

"Everything is ready," answered Michel Ardan, directing his match

towards the flame of the gas.

"Wait!" said Barbicane, chronometer in hand.

At that moment weight had no effect. The travellers felt its complete

disappearance in themselves. They were near the neutral point if they

had not reached it.

"One o'clock!" said Barbicane.

Michel Ardan put his match to a contrivance that put all the fuses into

instantaneous communication. No detonation was heard outside, where air

was wanting, but through the port-lights Barbicane saw the prolonged

flame, which was immediately extinguished.

The projectile had a slight shock which was very sensibly felt in the

interior.

The three friends looked, listened, without speaking, hardly breathing.

The beating of their hearts might have been heard in the absolute

silence.

"Are we falling?" asked Michel Ardan at last.

"No," answered Nicholl; "for the bottom of the projectile has not turned

towards the lunar disc!"

At that moment Barbicane left his window and turned towards his two

companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, his lips

contracted.

"We are falling!" said he.

"Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "upon the moon?"

"Upon the earth!" answered Barbicane.

"The devil!" cried Michel Ardan; and he added philosophically, "when we

entered the bullet we did not think it would be so difficult to get out

of it again."

In fact, the frightful fall had begun. The velocity kept by the

projectile had sent it beyond the neutral point. The explosion of the

fuses had not stopped it. That velocity which had carried the projectile

beyond the neutral line as it went was destined to do the same upon its

return. The law of physics condemned it, in its elliptical orbit, to

pass by every point it had already passed.

It was a terrible fall from a height of 78,000 leagues, and which no

springs could deaden. According to the laws of ballistics the projectile

would strike the earth with a velocity equal to that which animated it

as it left the Columbiad--a velocity of "16,000 metres in the last

second!"

And in order to give some figures for comparison it has been calculated

that an object thrown from the towers of Notre Dame, the altitude of

which is only 200 feet, would reach the pavement with a velocity of 120

leagues an hour. Here the projectile would strike the earth with a

velocity of 57,600 leagues an hour.

"We are lost men," said Nicholl coldly.

"Well, if we die," answered Barbicane, with a sort of religious

enthusiasm, "the result of our journey will be magnificently enlarged!

God will tell us His own secret! In the other life the soul will need

neither machines nor engines in order to know! It will be identified

with eternal wisdom!"

"True," replied Michel Ardan: "the other world may well console us for

that trifling orb called the moon!"

Barbicane crossed his arms upon his chest with a movement of sublime

resignation.

"God's will be done!" he said.

CHAPTER XX - THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA.

Well, lieutenant, and what about those soundings?"

"I think the operation is almost over, sir. But who would have expected

to find such a depth so near land, at 100 leagues only from the American

coast?"

"Yes, Bronsfield, there is a great depression," said Captain Blomsberry.

"There exists a submarine valley here, hollowed out by Humboldt's

current, which runs along the coasts of America to the Straits of

Magellan."

"Those great depths," said the lieutenant, "are not favourable for the

laying of telegraph cables. A smooth plateau is the best, like the one

the American cable lies on between Valentia and Newfoundland."

"I agree with you, Bronsfield. And, may it please you, lieutenant, where

are we now?"

"Sir," answered Bronsfield, "we have at this moment 21,500 feet of line

out, and the bullet at the end of the line has not yet touched the

bottom, for the sounding-lead would have come up again."

"Brook's apparatus is an ingenious one," said Captain Blomsberry. "It

allows us to obtain very correct soundings."

"Touched!" cried at that moment one of the forecastle-men who was

superintending the operation.

The captain and lieutenant went on to the forecastle-deck.

"What depth are we in?" asked the captain.

"Twenty-one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two feet," answered the

lieutenant, writing it down in his pocket-book.

"Very well, Bronsfield," said the captain, "I will go and mark the

result on my chart. Now have the sounding-line brought in--that is a

work of several hours. Meanwhile the engineer shall have his fires

lighted, and we shall be ready to start as soon as you have done. It is

10 p.m., and with your permission, lieutenant, I shall turn in."

"Certainly, sir, certainly!" answered Lieutenant Bronsfield amiably.

The captain of the Susquehanna, a worthy man if ever there was one, the

very humble servant of his officers, went to his cabin, took his

brandy-and-water with many expressions of satisfaction to the steward,

got into bed, not before complimenting his servant on the way he made

beds, and sank into peaceful slumber.

It was then 10 p.m. The eleventh day of the month of December was going

to end in a magnificent night.

The Susquehanna, a corvette of 500 horse power, of the United States

Navy, was taking soundings in the Pacific at about a hundred leagues

from the American coast, abreast of that long peninsula on the coast of

New Mexico.

The wind had gradually fallen. There was not the slightest movement in

the air. The colours of the corvette hung from the mast motionless and

inert.

The captain, Jonathan Blomsberry, cousin-german to Colonel Blomsberry,

one of the Gun Club members who had married a Horschbidden, the

captain's aunt and daughter of an honourable Kentucky merchant--Captain

Blomsberry could not have wished for better weather to execute the

delicate operation of sounding. His corvette had felt nothing of that

great tempest which swept away the clouds heaped up on the Rocky

Mountains, and allowed the course of the famous projectile to be

observed. All was going on well, and he did not forget to thank Heaven

with all the fervour of a Presbyterian.

The series of soundings executed by the Susquehanna were intended for

finding out the most favourable bottoms for the establishment of a

submarine cable between the Hawaiian Islands and the American coast.

It was a vast project set on foot by a powerful company. Its director,

the intelligent Cyrus Field, meant even to cover all the islands of

Oceania with a vast electric network--an immense enterprise worthy of

American genius.

It was to the corvette Susquehanna that the first operations of sounding

had been entrusted. During the night from the 11th to the 12th of

December she was exactly in north lat. 27° 7' and 41° 37' long., west

from the Washington meridian.

The moon, then in her last quarter, began to show herself above the

horizon.

After Captain Blomsberry's departure, Lieutenant Bronsfield and a few

officers were together on the poop. As the moon appeared their thoughts

turned towards that orb which the eyes of a whole hemisphere were then

contemplating. The best marine glasses could not have discovered the

projectile wandering round the demi-globe, and yet they were all pointed

at the shining disc which millions of eyes were looking at in the same

moment.

"They started ten days ago," then said Lieutenant Bronsfield. "What can

have become of them?"

"They have arrived, sir," exclaimed a young midshipman, "and they are

doing what all travellers do in a new country, they are looking about

them."

"I am certain of it as you say so, my young friend," answered Lieutenant

Bronsfield, smiling.

"Still," said another officer, "their arrival cannot be doubted. The

projectile must have reached the moon at the moment she was full, at

midnight on the 5th. We are now at the 11th of December; that makes six

days. Now in six times twenty-four hours, with no darkness, they have

had time to get comfortably settled. It seems to me that I see our brave

countrymen encamped at the bottom of a valley, on the borders of a

Selenite stream, near the projectile, half buried by its fall, amidst

volcanic remains, Captain Nicholl beginning his levelling operations,

President Barbicane putting his travelling notes in order, Michel Ardan

performing the lunar solitudes with his Londrès cigar--"

"Oh, it must be so; it is so!" exclaimed the young midshipman,

enthusiastic at the ideal description of his superior.

"I should like to believe it," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, who was

seldom carried away. "Unfortunately direct news from the lunar world

will always be wanting."

"Excuse me, sir," said the midshipman, "but cannot President Barbicane

write?"

A roar of laughter greeted this answer.

"Not letters," answered the young man quickly. "The post-office has

nothing to do with that."

"Perhaps you mean the telegraph-office?" said one of the officers

ironically.

"Nor that either," answered the midshipman, who would not give in. "But

it is very easy to establish graphic communication with the earth."

"And how, pray?"

"By means of the telescope on Long's Peak. You know that it brings the

moon to within two leagues only of the Rocky Mountains, and that it

allows them to see objects having nine feet of diameter on her surface.

Well, our industrious friends will construct a gigantic alphabet! They

will write words 600 feet long, and sentences a league long, and then

they can send up news!"

The young midshipman, who certainly had some imagination was loudly

applauded. Lieutenant Bronsfield himself was convinced that the idea

could have been carried out. He added that by sending luminous rays,

grouped by means of parabolical mirrors, direct communications could

also be established--in fact, these rays would be as visible on the

surface of Venus or Mars as the planet Neptune is from the earth. He

ended by saying that the brilliant points already observed on the

nearest planets might be signals made to the earth. But he said, that

though by these means they could have news from the lunar world, they

could not send any from the terrestrial world unless the Selenites have

at their disposition instruments with which to make distant

observations.

"That is evident," answered one of the officers, "but what has become of

the travellers? What have they done? What have they seen? That is what

interests us. Besides, if the experiment has succeeded, which I do not

doubt, it will be done again. The Columbiad is still walled up in the

soil of Florida. It is, therefore, now only a question of powder and

shot, and every time the moon passes the zenith we can send it a cargo

of visitors."

"It is evident," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, "that J.T. Maston will

go and join his friends one of these days."

"If he will have me," exclaimed the midshipman, "I am ready to go with

him."

"Oh, there will be plenty of amateurs, and if they are allowed to go,

half the inhabitants of the earth will soon have emigrated to the moon!"

This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was kept up

till about 1 a.m. It would be impossible to transcribe the overwhelming

systems and theories which were emitted by these audacious minds. Since

Barbicane's attempt it seemed that nothing was impossible to Americans.

They had already formed the project of sending, not another commission

of savants, but a whole colony, and a whole army of infantry,

artillery, and cavalry to conquer the lunar world.

At 1 a.m. the sounding-line was not all hauled in. Ten thousand feet

remained out, which would take several more hours to bring in. According

to the commander's orders the fires had been lighted, and the pressure

was going up already. The Susquehanna might have started at once.

At that very moment--it was 1.17 a.m.--Lieutenant Bronsfield was about

to leave his watch to turn in when his attention was attracted by a

distant and quite unexpected hissing sound.

His comrades and he at first thought that the hissing came from an

escape of steam, but upon lifting up his head he found that it was high

up in the air.

They had not time to question each other before the hissing became of

frightful intensity, and suddenly to their dazzled eyes appeared an

enormous bolis, inflamed by the rapidity of its course, by its friction

against the atmospheric strata.

This ignited mass grew huger as it came nearer, and fell with the noise

of thunder upon the bowsprit of the corvette, which it smashed off close

to the stem, and vanished in the waves.

A few feet nearer and the Susquehanna would have gone down with all on

board.

At that moment Captain Blomsberry appeared half-clothed, and rushing in

the forecastle, where his officers had preceded him--

"With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?" he asked.

And the midshipman, making himself the mouthpiece of them all, cried

out--

"Commander, it is 'they' come back again."

CHAPTER XXI - J.T. MASTON CALLED IN.

Emotion was great on board the Susquehanna. Officers and sailors forgot

the terrible danger they had just been in--the danger of being crushed

and sunk. They only thought of the catastrophe which terminated the

journey. Thus, therefore, the moat audacious enterprise of ancient and

modern times lost the life of the bold adventurers who had attempted it.

"It is 'they' come back," the young midshipman had said, and they had

all understood. No one doubted that the bolis was the projectile of the

Gun Club. Opinions were divided about the fate of the travellers.

"They are dead!" said one.

"They are alive," answered the other. "The water is deep here, and the

shock has been deadened."

"But they will have no air, and will die suffocated!"

"Burnt!" answered the other. "Their projectile was only an incandescent

mass as it crossed the atmosphere."

"What does it matter?" was answered unanimously, "living or dead they

must be brought up from there."

Meanwhile Captain Blomsberry had called his officers together, and with

their permission he held a council. Something must be done immediately.

The most immediate was to haul up the projectile--a difficult operation,

but not an impossible one. But the corvette wanted the necessary

engines, which would have to be powerful and precise. It was, therefore,

resolved to put into the nearest port, and to send word to the Gun Club

about the fall of the bullet.

This determination was taken unanimously. The choice of a port was

discussed. The neighbouring coast had no harbour on the 27th degree of

latitude. Higher up, above the peninsula of Monterey, was the important

town which has given its name to it. But, seated on the confines of a

veritable desert, it had no telegraphic communication with the interior,

and electricity alone could spread the important news quickly enough.

Some degrees above lay the bay of San Francisco. Through the capital of

the Gold Country communication with the centre of the Union would be

easy. By putting all steam on, the Susquehanna, in less than two days,

could reach the port of San Francisco. She must, therefore, start at

once.

The fires were heaped up, and they could set sail immediately. Two

thousand fathoms of sounding still remained in the water. Captain

Blomsberry would not lose precious time in hauling it in, and resolved

to cut the line.

"We will fix the end to a buoy," said he, "and the buoy will indicate

the exact point where the projectile fell."

"Besides," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, "we have our exact bearings:

north lat. 27° 7', and west long. 41° 37'."

"Very well, Mr. Bronsfield," answered the captain; "with your

permission, have the line cut."

A strong buoy, reinforced by a couple of spars, was thrown out on to

the surface of the ocean. The end of the line was solidly struck

beneath, and only submitted to the ebb and flow of the surges, so that

it would not drift much.

At that moment the engineer came to warn the captain that he had put the

pressure on, and they could start. The captain thanked him for his

excellent communication. Then he gave N.N.E. as the route. The corvette

was put about, and made for the bay of San Francisco with all steam on.

It was then 3 a.m.

Two hundred leagues to get over was not much for a quick vessel like the

Susquehanna. It got over that distance in thirty-six hours, and on the

14th of December, at 1.27 p.m., she would enter the bay of San

Francisco.

At the sight of this vessel of the national navy arriving with all speed

on, her bowsprit gone, and her mainmast propped up, public curiosity was

singularly excited. A compact crowd was soon assembled on the quays

awaiting the landing.

After weighing anchor Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant Bronsfield got

down into an eight-oared boat which carried them rapidly to the land.

They jumped out on the quay.

"The telegraph-office?" they asked, without answering one of the

thousand questions that were showered upon them.

The port inspector guided them himself to the telegraph-office, amidst

an immense crowd of curious people.

Blomsberry and Bronsfield went into the office whilst the crowd crushed

against the door.

A few minutes later one message was sent in four different

directions:--1st, to the Secretary of the Navy, Washington; 2nd, to the

Vice-President of the Gun Club, Baltimore; 3rd, to the Honourable J.T.

Maston, Long's Peak, Rocky Mountains; 4th, to the Sub-Director of the

Cambridge Observatory, Massachusetts.

It ran as follows:--

"In north lat. 20° 7', and west long. 41° 37', the projectile of the

Columbiad fell into the Pacific, on December 12th, at 1.17 am. Send

instructions.--BLOMSBERRY, Commander Susquehanna."

Five minutes afterwards the whole town of San Francisco knew the

tidings. Before 6 p.m. the different States of the Union had

intelligence of the supreme catastrophe. After midnight, through the

cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the great American

enterprise.

It would be impossible to describe the effect produced throughout the

world by the unexpected news.

On receipt of the telegram the Secretary of the Navy telegraphed to the

Susquehanna to keep under fire, and wait in the bay of San Francisco.

She was to be ready to set sail day or night.

The Observatory of Cambridge had an extraordinary meeting, and, with the

serenity which distinguishes scientific bodies, it peacefully discussed

the scientific part of the question.

At the Gun Club there was an explosion. All the artillerymen were

assembled. The Vice-President, the Honourable Wilcome, was just reading

the premature telegram by which Messrs. Maston and Belfast announced

that the projectile had just been perceived in the gigantic reflector of

Long's Peak. This communication informed them also that the bullet,

retained by the attraction of the moon, was playing the part of

sub-satellite in the solar world.

The truth on this subject is now known.

However, upon the arrival of Blomsberry's message, which so formally

contradicted J.T. Maston's telegram, two parties were formed in the

bosom of the Gun Club. On the one side were members who admitted the

fall of the projectile, and consequently the return of the travellers.

On the other were those who, holding by the observations at Long's Peak,

concluded that the commander of the Susquehanna was mistaken. According

to the latter, the pretended projectile was only a bolis, nothing but a

bolis, a shooting star, which in its fall had fractured the corvette.

Their argument could not very well be answered, because the velocity

with which it was endowed had made its observation very difficult. The

commander of the Susquehanna and his officers might certainly have been

mistaken in good faith. One argument certainly was in their favour: if

the projectile had fallen on the earth it must have touched the

terrestrial spheroid upon the 27th degree of north latitude, and, taking

into account the time that had elapsed, and the earth's movement of

rotation, between the 41st and 42nd degree of west longitude.

However that might be, it was unanimously decided in the Gun Club that

Blomsberry's brother Bilsby and Major Elphinstone should start at once

for San Francisco and give their advice about the means of dragging up

the projectile from the depths of the ocean.

These men started without losing an instant, and the railway which was

soon to cross the whole of Central America took them to St. Louis, where

rapid mail-coaches awaited them.

Almost at the same moment that the Secretary of the Navy, the

Vice-President of the Gun Club, and the Sub-Director of the Observatory

received the telegram from San Francisco, the Honourable J.T. Maston

felt the most violent emotion of his whole existence--an emotion not

even equalled by that he had experienced when his celebrated cannon was

blown up, and which, like it, nearly cost him his life.

It will be remembered that the Secretary of the Gun Club had started

some minutes after the projectile--and almost as quickly--for the

station of Long's Peak in the Rocky Mountains. The learned J. Belfast,

Director of the Cambridge Observatory, accompanied him. Arrived at the

station the two friends had summarily installed themselves, and no

longer left the summit of their enormous telescope.

We know that this gigantic instrument had been set up on the reflecting

system, called "front view" by the English. This arrangement only gave

one reflection of objects, and consequently made the view much clearer.

The result was that J.T. Maston and Belfast, whilst observing, were

stationed in the upper part of the instrument instead of in the lower.

They reached it by a twisted staircase, a masterpiece of lightness, and

below them lay the metal, well terminated by the metallic mirror, 280

feet deep.

Now it was upon the narrow platform placed round the telescope that the

two savants passed their existence, cursing the daylight which hid the

moon from their eyes, and the clouds which obstinately veiled her at

night.

Who can depict their delight when, after waiting several days, during

the night of December 5th they perceived the vehicle that was carrying

their friends through space? To that delight succeeded deep

disappointment when, trusting to incomplete observations, they sent out

with their first telegram to the world the erroneous affirmation that

the projectile had become a satellite of the moon gravitating in an

immutable orbit.

After that instant the bullet disappeared behind the invisible disc of

the moon. But when it ought to have reappeared on the invisible disc the

impatience of J.T. Maston and his no less impatient companion may be

imagined. At every minute of the night they thought they should see the

projectile again, and they did not see it. Hence between them arose

endless discussions and violent disputes, Belfast affirming that the

projectile was not visible, J.T. Maston affirming that any one but a

blind man could see it.

"It is the bullet!" repeated J.T. Maston.

"No!" answered Belfast, "it is an avalanche falling from a lunar

mountain!"

"Well, then, we shall see it to-morrow."

"No, it will be seen no more. It is carried away into space."

"We shall see it, I tell you."

"No, we shall not."

And while these interjections were being showered like hail, the

well-known irritability of the Secretary of the Gun Club constituted a

permanent danger to the director, Belfast.

Their existence together would soon have become impossible, but an

unexpected event cut short these eternal discussions.

During the night between the 14th and 15th of December the two

irreconcilable friends were occupied in observing the lunar disc. J.T.

Maston was, as usual, saying strong things to the learned Belfast, who

was getting angry too. The Secretary of the Gun Club declared for the

thousandth time that he had just perceived the projectile, adding even

that Michel Ardan's face had appeared at one of the port-lights. He was

emphasising his arguments by a series of gestures which his redoubtable

hook rendered dangerous.

At that moment Belfast's servant appeared upon the platform--it was 10

p.m.--and gave him a telegram. It was the message from the Commander of

the Susquehanna.

Belfast tore the envelope, read the inclosure, and uttered a cry.

"What is it?" said J.T. Maston.

"It's the bullet!"

"What of that?"

"It has fallen upon the earth!"

Another cry; this time a howl answered him.

He turned towards J.T. Maston. The unfortunate fellow, leaning

imprudently over the metal tube, had disappeared down the immense

telescope--a fall of 280 feet! Belfast, distracted, rushed towards the

orifice of the reflector.

He breathed again. J.T. Maston's steel hook had caught in one of the

props which maintained the platform of the telescope. He was uttering

formidable cries.

Belfast called. Help came, and the imprudent secretary was hoisted up,

not without trouble.

He reappeared unhurt at the upper orifice.

"Suppose I had broken the mirror?" said he.

"You would have paid for it," answered Belfast severely.

"And where has the infernal bullet fallen?" asked J.T. Maston.

"Into the Pacific."

"Let us start at once."

A quarter of an hour afterwards the two learned friends were descending

the slope of the Rocky Mountains, and two days afterwards they reached

San Francisco at the same time as their friends of the Gun Club, having

killed five horses on the road.

Elphinstone, Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed up to them upon their

arrival.

"What is to be done?" they exclaimed.

"The bullet must be fished up," answered J.T. Maston, "and as soon as

possible!"

CHAPTER XXII - PICKED UP.

The very spot where the projectile had disappeared under the waves was

exactly known. The instruments for seizing it and bringing it to the

surface of the ocean were still wanting. They had to be invented and

then manufactured. American engineers could not be embarrassed by such a

trifle. The grappling-irons once established and steam helping, they

were assured of raising the projectile, notwithstanding its weight,

which diminished the density of the liquid amidst which it was plunged.

But it was not enough to fish up the bullet. It was necessary to act

promptly in the interest of the travellers. No one doubted that they

were still living.

"Yes," repeated J.T. Maston incessantly, whose confidence inspired

everybody, "our friends are clever fellows, and they cannot have fallen

like imbeciles. They are alive, alive and well, but we must make haste

in order to find them so. He had no anxiety about provisions and water.

They had enough for a long time! But air!--air would soon fail them.

Then they must make haste!"

And they did make haste. They prepared the Susquehanna for her new

destination. Her powerful engines were arranged to be used for the

hauling machines. The aluminium projectile only weighed 19,250 lbs., a

much less weight than that of the transatlantic cable, which was picked

up under similar circumstances. The only difficulty lay in the smooth

sides of the cylindro-conical bullet, which made it difficult to

grapple.

With that end in view the engineer Murchison, summoned to San Francisco,

caused enormous grappling-irons to be fitted upon an automatical system

which would not let the projectile go again if they succeeded in seizing

it with their powerful pincers. He also had some diving-dresses

prepared, which, by their impermeable and resisting texture, allowed

divers to survey the bottom of the sea. He likewise embarked on board

the Susquehanna apparatuses for compressed air, very ingeniously

contrived. They were veritable rooms, with port-lights in them, and

which, by introducing the water into certain compartments, could be sunk

to great depths. These apparatuses were already at San Francisco, where

they had been used in the construction of a submarine dyke. This was

fortunate, for there would not have been time to make them.

Yet notwithstanding the perfection of the apparatus, notwithstanding the

ingenuity of the savants who were to use them, the success of the

operation was anything but assured. Fishing up a bullet from 20,000 feet

under water must be an uncertain operation. And even if the bullet

should again be brought to the surface, how had the travellers borne the

terrible shock that even 20,000 feet of water would not sufficiently

deaden?

In short, everything must be done quickly. J.T. Maston hurried on his

workmen day and night. He was ready either to buckle on the diver's

dress or to try the air-apparatus in order to find his courageous

friends.

Still, notwithstanding the diligence with which the different machines

were got ready, notwithstanding the considerable sums which were placed

at the disposition of the Gun Club by the Government of the Union, five

long days (five centuries) went by before the preparations were

completed. During that time public opinion was excited to the highest

point. Telegrams were incessantly exchanged all over the world through

the electric wires and cables. The saving of Barbicane, Nicholl, and

Michel Ardan became an international business. All the nations that had

subscribed to the enterprise of the Gun Club were equally interested in

the safety of the travellers.

At last the grappling-chains, air-chambers, and automatic

grappling-irons were embarked on board the Susquehanna. J.T. Maston, the

engineer Murchison, and the Gun Club delegates already occupied their

cabins. There was nothing to do but to start.

On the 21st of December, at 8 p.m., the corvette set sail on a calm sea

with a rather cold north-east wind blowing. All the population of San

Francisco crowded on to the quays, mute and anxious, reserving its

hurrahs for the return.

The steam was put on to its maximum of tension, and the screw of the

Susquehanna carried it rapidly out of the bay.

It would be useless to relate the conversations on board amongst the

officers, sailors, and passengers. All these men had but one thought.

Their hearts all beat with the same emotion. What were Barbicane and his

companions doing whilst they were hastening to their succour? What had

become of them? Had they been able to attempt some audacious manoeuvre

to recover their liberty? No one could say. The truth is that any

attempt would have failed. Sunk to nearly two leagues under the ocean,

their metal prison would defy any effort of its prisoners.

On the 23rd of December, at 8 a.m., after a rapid passage, the

Susquehanna ought to be on the scene of the disaster. They were obliged

to wait till twelve o'clock to take their exact bearings. The buoy

fastened on to the sounding-line had not yet been seen.

At noon Captain Blomsberry, helped by his officers, who controlled the

observation, made his point in presence of the delegates of the Gun

Club. That was an anxious moment. The Susquehanna was found to be at

some minutes west of the very spot where the projectile had disappeared

under the waves.

The direction of the corvette was therefore given in view of reaching

the precise spot.

At 12.47 p.m. the buoy was sighted. It was in perfect order, and did not

seem to have drifted far.

"At last!" exclaimed J.T. Maston.

"Shall we begin?" asked Captain Blomsberry.

"Without losing a second," answered J.T. Maston.

Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette perfectly motionless.

Before trying to grapple the projectile, the engineer, Murchison, wished

to find out its exact position on the sea-bottom. The submarine

apparatus destined for this search received their provision of air. The

handling of these engines is not without danger, for at 20,000 feet

below the surface of the water and under such great pressure they are

exposed to ruptures the consequences of which would be terrible.

J.T. Maston, the commander's brother, and the engineer Murchison,

without a thought of these dangers, took their places in the

air-chambers. The commander, on his foot-bridge, presided over the

operation, ready to stop or haul in his chains at the least signal. The

screw had been taken off, and all the force of the machines upon the

windlass would soon have brought up the apparatus on board.

The descent began at 1.25 p.m., and the chamber, dragged down by its

reservoirs filled with water, disappeared under the surface of the

ocean.

The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was now divided between

the prisoners in the projectile and the prisoners of the submarine

apparatus. These latter forgot themselves, and, glued to the panes of

the port-lights, they attentively observed the liquid masses they were

passing through.

The descent was rapid. At 2.17 p.m. J.T. Maston and his companions had

reached the bottom of the Pacific; but they saw nothing except the arid

desert which neither marine flora nor fauna any longer animated. By the

light of their lamps, furnished with powerful reflectors, they could

observe the dark layers of water in a rather large radius, but the

projectile remained invisible in their eyes.

The impatience of these bold divers could hardly be described. Their

apparatus being in electric communication with the corvette, they made a

signal agreed upon, and the Susquehanna carried their chamber over a

mile of space at one yard from the soil.

They thus explored all the submarine plain, deceived at every instant by

optical delusions which cut them to the heart. Here a rock, there a

swelling of the ground, looked to them like the much-sought-for

projectile; then they would soon find out their error and despair again.

"Where are they? Where can they be?" cried J.T. Maston.

And the poor man called aloud to Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan,

as if his unfortunate friends could have heard him through that

impenetrable medium!

The search went on under those conditions until the vitiated state of

the air in the apparatus forced the divers to go up again.

The hauling in was begun at 6 p.m., and was not terminated before

midnight.

"We will try again to-morrow," said J.T. Maston as he stepped on to the

deck of the corvette.

"Yes," answered Captain Blomsberry.

"And in another place."

"Yes."

J.T. Maston did not yet doubt of his ultimate success, but his

companions, who were no longer intoxicated with the animation of the

first few hours, already took in all the difficulties of the enterprise.

What seemed easy at San Francisco in open ocean appeared almost

impossible. The chances of success diminished in a large proportion, and

it was to chance alone that the finding of the projectile had to be

left.

The next day, the 24th of December, notwithstanding the fatigues of the

preceding day, operations were resumed. The corvette moved some minutes

farther west, and the apparatus, provisioned with air again, took the

same explorers to the depths of the ocean.

All that day was passed in a fruitless search. The bed of the sea was a

desert. The day of the 25th brought no result, neither did that of the

26th.

It was disheartening. They thought of the unfortunate men shut up for

twenty-six days in the projectile. Perhaps they were all feeling the

first symptoms of suffocation, even if they had escaped the dangers of

their fall. The air was getting exhausted, and doubtless with the air

their courage and spirits.

"The air very likely, but their courage never," said J.T. Maston.

On the 28th, after two days' search, all hope was lost. This bullet was

an atom in the immensity of the sea! They must give up the hope of

finding it.

Still J.T. Maston would not hear about leaving. He would not abandon the

place without having at least found the tomb of his friends. But Captain

Blomsberry could not stay on obstinately, and notwithstanding the

opposition of the worthy secretary, he was obliged to give orders to set

sail.

On the 29th of December, at 9 a.m., the Susquehanna, heading north-east,

began to return to the bay of San Francisco.

It was 10 a.m. The corvette was leaving slowly and as if with regret the

scene of the catastrophe, when the sailor at the masthead, who was on

the look-out, called out all at once--

"A buoy on the lee bow!"

The officers looked in the direction indicated. They saw through their

telescopes the object signalled, which did look like one of those buoys

used for marking the openings of bays or rivers; but, unlike them, a

flag floating in the wind surmounted a cone which emerged five or six

feet. This buoy shone in the sunshine as if made of plates of silver.

The commander, Blomsberry, J.T. Maston, and the delegates of the Gun

Club ascended the foot-bridge and examined the object thus drifting on

the waves.

All looked with feverish anxiety, but in silence. None of them dared

utter the thought that came into all their minds.

The corvette approached to within two cables' length of the object.

A shudder ran through the whole crew.

The flag was an American one!

At that moment a veritable roar was heard. It was the worthy J.T.

Maston, who had fallen in a heap; forgetting on the one hand that he had

only an iron hook for one arm, and on the other that a simple

gutta-percha cap covered his cranium-box, he had given himself a

formidable blow.

They rushed towards him and picked him up. They recalled him to life.

And what were his first words?

"Ah! triple brutes! quadruple idiots! quintuple boobies that we are!"

"What is the matter?" every one round him exclaimed.

"What the matter is?"

"Speak, can't you?"

"It is, imbeciles," shouted the terrible secretary, "it is the bullet

only weighs 19,250 lbs!"

"Well?"

"And it displaces 28 tons, or 56,000 lbs., consequently it floats!"

Ah! how that worthy man did underline the verb "to float!" And it was

the truth! All, yes! all these savants had forgotten this fundamental

law, that in consequence of its specific lightness the projectile, after

having been dragged by its fall to the greatest depths of the ocean, had

naturally returned to the surface; and now it was floating tranquilly

whichever way the wind carried them.

The boats had been lowered. J.T. Maston and his friends rushed into

them. The excitement was at its highest point. All hearts palpitated

whilst the boats rowed towards the projectile. What did it contain--the

living or the dead? The living. Yes! unless death had struck down

Barbicane and his companions since they had hoisted the flag!

Profound silence reigned in the boats. All hearts stopped beating. Eyes

no longer performed their office. One of the port-lights of the

projectile was opened. Some pieces of glass remaining in the frame

proved that it had been broken. This port-light was situated actually

five feet above water.

A boat drew alongside--that of J.T. Maston. He rushed to the broken

window.

At that moment the joyful and clear voice of Michel Ardan was heard

exclaiming in the accents of victory--"Double blank, Barbicane, double

blank!"

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, and Nicholl were playing at dominoes.

CHAPTER XXIII - THE END.

It will be remembered that immense sympathy accompanied the three

travellers upon their departure. If the beginning of their enterprise

had caused such excitement in the old and new world, what enthusiasm

must welcome their return! Would not those millions of spectators who

had invaded the Floridian peninsula rush to meet the sublime

adventurers? Would those legions of foreigners from all points of the

globe, now in America, leave the Union without seeing Barbicane,

Nicholl, and Michel Ardan once more? No, and the ardent passion of the

public would worthily respond to the grandeur of the enterprise. Human

beings who had left the terrestrial spheroid, who had returned after

their strange journey into celestial space, could not fail to be

received like the prophet Elijah when he returned to the earth. To see

them first, to hear them afterwards, was the general desire.

This desire was to be very promptly realised by almost all the

inhabitants of the Union.

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club

returned without delay to Baltimore, and were there received with

indescribable enthusiasm. The president's travelling notes were ready to

be given up for publicity. The New York Herald bought this manuscript

at a price which is not yet known, but which must have been enormous. In

fact, during the publication of the Journey to the Moon they printed

5,000,000 copies of that newspaper. Three days after the travellers'

return to the earth the least details of their expedition were known.

The only thing remaining to be done was to see the heroes of this

superhuman enterprise.

The exploration of Barbicane and his friends around the moon had allowed

them to control the different theories about the terrestrial satellite.

These savants had observed it de visu and under quite peculiar

circumstances. It was now known which systems were to be rejected, which

admitted, upon the formation of this orb, its origin, and its

inhabitability. Its past, present, and future had given up their

secrets. What could be objected to conscientious observations made at

less than forty miles from that curious mountain of Tycho, the strangest

mountain system of lunar orography? What answers could be made to

savants who had looked into the dark depths of the amphitheatre of

Pluto? Who could contradict these audacious men whom the hazards of

their enterprise had carried over the invisible disc of the moon, which

no human eye had ever seen before? It was now their prerogative to

impose the limits of that selenographic science which had built up the

lunar world like Cuvier did the skeleton of a fossil, and to say, "The

moon was this, a world inhabitable and inhabited anterior to the earth!

The moon is this, a world now uninhabitable and uninhabited!"

In order to welcome the return of the most illustrious of its members

and his two companions, the Gun Club thought of giving them a banquet;

but a banquet worthy of them, worthy of the American people, and under

such circumstances that all the inhabitants of the Union could take a

direct part in it.

All the termini of the railroads in the State were joined together by

movable rails. Then, in all the stations hung with the same flags,

decorated with the same ornaments, were spread tables uniformly dressed.

At a certain time, severely calculated upon electric clocks which beat

the seconds at the same instant, the inhabitants were invited to take

their places at the same banquet.

During four days, from the 5th to the 9th of January, the trains were

suspended like they are on Sundays upon the railways of the Union, and

all the lines were free.

One locomotive alone, a very fast engine, dragging a state saloon, had

the right of circulating, during these four days, upon the railways of

the United States.

This locomotive, conducted by a stoker and a mechanic, carried, by a

great favour, the Honourable J.T. Maston, Secretary of the Gun Club.

The saloon was reserved for President Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, and

Michel Ardan.

The train left the station of Baltimore upon the whistle of the

engine-driver amidst the hurrahs and all the admiring interjections of

the American language. It went at the speed of eighty leagues an hour.

But what was that speed compared to the one with which the three heroes

had left the Columbiad?

Thus they went from one town to another, finding the population in

crowds upon their passage saluting them with the same acclamations, and

showering upon them the same "bravoes." They thus travelled over the

east of the Union through Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts,

Vermont, Maine, and New Brunswick; north and west through New York,

Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin; south through Illinois, Missouri,

Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana; south-east through Alabama and Florida,

Georgia, and the Carolinas; they visited the centre through Tennessee,

Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana; then after the station of Washington

they re-entered Baltimore, and during four days they could imagine that

the United States of America, seated at one immense banquet, saluted

them simultaneously with the same hurrahs.

This apotheosis was worthy of these heroes, whom fable would have placed

in the ranks of demigods.

And now would this attempt, without precedent in the annals of travels,

have any practical result? Would direct communication ever be

established with the moon? Would a service of navigation ever be founded

across space for the solar world? Will people ever go from planet to

planet, from Jupiter to Mercury, and later on from one star to another,

from the Polar star to Sirius, would a method of locomotion allow of

visiting the suns which swarm in the firmament?

No answer can be given to these questions, but knowing the audacious

ingenuity of the Anglo-Saxon race, no one will be astonished that the

Americans tried to turn President Barbicane's experiment to account.

Thus some time after the return of the travellers the public received

with marked favour the advertisement of a Joint-Stock Company (Limited),

with a capital of a hundred million dollars, divided into a hundred

thousand shares of a thousand dollars each, under the name of National

Company for Interstellar Communication--President, Barbicane;

Vice-President, Captain Nicholl; Secretary, J.T. Maston; Director,

Michel Ardan--and as it is customary in America to foresee everything in

business, even bankruptcy, the Honourable Harry Trollope, Commissary

Judge, and Francis Dayton were appointed beforehand assignees.

THE END.