The moon, being the nearest to the earth of all the heavenly
bodies, has always occupied the imagination of men. Many fanciful
accounts have been written of voyages to the moon, of which the
following story by Edgar Allan Poe is among the best. So wonderful
has been the advance of science that it is conceivable that at some
distant time in the future the inhabitants of this world may
possibly be able to visit the beautiful body which lights the night
for us.
I
After a long and arduous devotion to the study of physics and astronomy,
I, Hans Pfaal of Rotterdam, at length determined to construct a balloon
of my own along original lines and to try a flight in it. Accordingly I
had made an enormous bag out of cambric muslin, varnished with
caoutchouc for protection against the weather. I procured all the
instruments needed for a prolonged ascent and finally prepared for the
inflation of the balloon. Herein lay my secret, my invention, the thing
in which my balloon differed from all the balloons that had gone before.
Out of a peculiar [v]metallic substance and a very common acid I was
able to manufacture a gas of a density about 37.4 less than that of
hydrogen, and thus by far the lightest substance ever known. It would
serve to carry the balloon to heights greater than had been attained
before, for hydrogen is the gas usually used.
The hour for my experiment in ballooning finally arrived. I had chosen
the night as the best time for the ascension, because I should thereby
avoid annoyances caused by the curiosity of the ignorant and the idle.
It was the first of April. The night was dark; there was not a star to
be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals, made me very
uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which,
in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather
heavy with the moisture. I therefore set my assistants to working, and
in about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
inflated. I attached the car and put all my implements in it--a
telescope, a barometer, a thermometer, an [v]electrometer, a compass, a
magnetic needle, a seconds watch, a bell, and other things. I had
further procured a globe of glass, exhausted of air and carefully closed
with a stopper, not forgetting a special apparatus for condensing air, a
copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as
[v]pemmican, in which much [v]nutriment is contained in comparatively
little bulk. I also secured a cat in the car.
It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my
departure. I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth,
and was pleased to find that I shot upward with [v]inconceivable
rapidity, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of
leaden ballast and able to have carried as much more.
Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when
roaring and rumbling up after me in the most [v]tumultuous and terrible
manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire and gravel and burning wood
and blazing metal that my very heart sunk within me and I fell down in
the car, trembling with terror. Some of my chemical materials had
exploded immediately beneath me almost at the moment of my leaving
earth. The balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded, then
whirled round and round with sickening [v]velocity, and finally, reeling
and staggering like a drunken man, hurled me over the rim of the car;
and in the moment of my fall I lost consciousness.
I had no knowledge of what had saved me. When I partially recovered the
sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon at a
[v]prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of land
to be discovered far and wide within the limits of the vast horizon. My
sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means so
[v]replete with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was
much of madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my
situation. I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other,
and wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
the veins and the horrible blackness of the finger nails. I afterward
carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly and feeling it with
minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying myself that it was
not, as I had more than half suspected, larger than the balloon. It now
occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my left
ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through
my mind. I began to understand that my foot had caught in a rope and
that I was hanging downward outside the car. But strange to say! I was
neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it
was a sort of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to
display in getting myself out of this [v]dilemma.
With great caution and deliberation, I put my hands behind my back and
unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
pantaloons. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty,
turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however,
after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle and was
glad to find them remain firm in that position. Holding with my teeth
the instrument thus obtained, I proceeded to untie the knot of my
cravat; it was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then
made fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,
tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upward, with a prodigious
exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in
throwing the buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had
anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.
My body was now inclined toward the side of the car at an angle of about
forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was therefore
only forty-five degrees below the [v]perpendicular. So far from it, I
still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon, for the change of
position which I had acquired had forced the bottom of the car
considerably outward from my position, which was accordingly one of the
most extreme peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I fell
from the car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon,
instead of turned outwardly from it as it actually was--or if, in the
second place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over
the upper edge instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the
car--in either of these cases, I should have been unable to accomplish
even as much as I had now accomplished. I had therefore every reason to
be grateful, although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be
anything at all, and hung for perhaps a quarter of an hour in that
extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion, and
in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.
This feeling, however, did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
succeeded horror and dismay, and a sense of utter helplessness and ruin.
In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head and
throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with delirium, had
now begun to retire within its proper channels, and the distinctness
which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to
deprive me of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this
weakness was, luckily for me, of no very great duration. In good time
came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and with frantic cries and
struggles, I jerked my body upward, till, at length, clutching with a
vice-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it and
fell headlong and shuddering within the car.
When I had recovered from the weakness caused by being so long in that
position and the horror from which I had suffered, I found that all my
implements were in place and that neither ballast nor provisions had
been lost.
It is now high time that I should explain the object of my voyage. I had
been harassed for long by poverty and creditors. In this state of mind,
wishing to live and yet wearied with life, my deep studies in astronomy
opened a resource to my imagination. I determined to depart, yet
live--to leave the world, yet continue to exist--in short, to be plain,
I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the
moon.
This was not so mad as it seems. The moon's actual distance from the
earth was the first thing to be attended to. The mean or average
interval between the centers of the two planets is only about 237,000
miles. But at certain times the moon and earth are much nearer than at
others, and if I could contrive to meet the moon at the moment when it
was nearest earth, the above-mentioned distance would be materially
lessened. But even taking the average distance and deducting the
[v]radius of the earth and the moon, the actual interval to be traversed
under average circumstances would be 231,920 miles. Now this, I
reflected, was no very extraordinary distance. Traveling on the land has
been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of sixty miles an hour; and
indeed a much greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this
velocity it would take me no more than 161 days to reach the surface of
the moon. There were, however, many particulars inducing me to believe
that my average rate of traveling might possibly very much exceed that
of sixty miles an hour.
The next point to be regarded was one of far greater importance. We know
that at 18,000 feet above the surface of the earth we have passed
one-half the material, or, at all events, one-half the [v]ponderable
body of air upon the globe. It is also calculated that at a height of
eighty miles the [v]rarefaction of air is so great that animal life can
be sustained in no manner. But I did not fail to perceive that these
calculations are founded on our experimental knowledge of the air in
the immediate vicinity of the earth, and that it is taken for granted
that animal life is incapable of [v]modification. I thought that no
matter how high we may ascend we cannot arrive at a limit beyond which
no atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I argued, although it may
exist in a state of [v]infinite rarefaction.
Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little farther
hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere
essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I thought that, by
means of my very ingenious apparatus for that purpose, I should readily
be able to condense it in sufficient quantity for breathing. This would
remove the chief obstacle in a journey to the moon.
I now turned to view the prospect beneath me. At twenty minutes past six
o'clock, the barometer showed an elevation of 26,000 feet, or five miles
to a fraction. The outlook seemed unbounded. I beheld as much as a
sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The sea
appeared as unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the telescope,
I could perceive it to be in a state of violent agitation. I now began
to experience, at intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about
the ears, due to the rarefaction of the air. The cat seemed to suffer no
inconvenience whatever.
I was rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer indicated an
altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began to find great
difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was excessively painful;
and, having felt for some time a moisture about my cheeks, I at length
discovered it to be blood, which was oozing quite fast from the drums of
my ears. These symptoms were more than I had expected and occasioned me
some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently and without
consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of
ballast. The increased rate of ascent thus obtained carried me too
rapidly into a highly rarefied layer of atmosphere, and the result
nearly proved fatal to my expedition and myself. I was suddenly seized
with a spasm, which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
this in a measure ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
intervals, and in a gasping manner--bleeding all the while copiously at
the nose and ears and even slightly at the eyes.
The cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth,
staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of poison. I
now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been guilty in
discharging my ballast, and my agitation was excessive. I expected
nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. I lay down in the
bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so
far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
Having no lancet, I was obliged to open a vein in my arm with the blade
of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced
a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full
most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing,
however, was diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it
would be soon positively necessary to make use of my condenser.
By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen miles
above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident that my
rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progress would
have been apparent to a slight extent even had I not discharged the
ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears returned at intervals
and with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the
nose; but upon the whole I suffered much less than might have been
expected. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus and got it ready for
immediate use.
The view of the earth at this period of my ascension was beautiful
indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I
could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which
every moment gained a deeper and deeper tint of blue. At a vast distance
to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of
Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a
small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
individual edifices not a trace could be found, and the proudest cities
of mankind had utterly faded away from the surface of the earth.
At a quarter-past eight, being able no longer to draw breath without the
most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car
the apparatus belonging to the condenser. I had prepared a very strong,
perfectly air-tight gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of
sufficient size, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say,
the bag was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides and so
on, up to the upper rim where the net-work is attached. Having pulled up
the bag and made a complete inclosure on all sides, I was shut in an
air-tight chamber.
In the sides of this covering had been inserted three circular panes of
thick but clear glass, through which I could see without difficulty
around me in every horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth
forming the bottom was a fourth window corresponding with a small
aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see straight
down, but I had been unable to fix a similar window above me and so I
could expect to see no objects directly overhead.
The condensing apparatus was connected with the outer air by a tube to
admit air at one end and by a valve at the bottom of the car to eject
foul air. By the time I had completed these arrangements and filled the
chamber with condensed air by means of the apparatus, it wanted only ten
minutes of nine o'clock. During the whole period of my being thus
employed, I endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
respiration, and bitterly did I repent the foolhardiness of which I had
been guilty in putting off to the last moment a matter of so much
importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap
the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom
and ease--and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised to
find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent pains which
had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache, accompanied by a sensation
of fulness about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all
of which I had now to complain.
At twenty minutes before nine o'clock, the mercury attained its limit, or
ran down, in the barometer. The instrument then indicated an altitude of
twenty-five miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an extent of
the earth's area amounting to no less than one three-hundred-and-twentieth
part of the entire surface.
At half-past nine, I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected, but
dropped down like a bullet and with the greatest velocity, being out of
sight in a very few seconds. It occurred to me that the atmosphere was
now far too rare to sustain even feathers; that they actually fell, as
they appeared to do, with great speed, and that I had been surprised by
the united velocities of their descent and my own rise.
At six o'clock P. M., I perceived a great portion of the earth's visible
area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to
advance with great rapidity, until at five minutes before seven the
whole surface in sight was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was
not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting
sun ceased to illumine the balloon, and this fact, although, of course,
expected, did not fail to give me great pleasure. In the morning I
should behold the rising [v]luminary many hours before the citizens of
Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward,
and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, I should
enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and longer period. I now
resolved to keep a journal of my passage, reckoning the days by
twenty-four hours instead of by day and night.
At ten o'clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the rest of
the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which, obvious as it
may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very moment of which I
am now speaking. If I went to sleep, as I proposed, how could the air in
the chamber be renewed in the meanwhile? To breath it more than an hour
at the farthest would be impossible; or, even if this term could be
extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might
ensue. This dilemma gave me no little anxiety; and it will hardly be
believed that, after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon
this business in so serious a light as to give up all hope of
accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to the
necessity of a descent.
But this hesitation was only momentary. I reflected that man is the
slave of custom and that many things are deemed essential which are only
the results of habit. It was certain that I could not do without sleep;
but I might easily bring myself to feel no inconvenience from being
awakened at intervals of an hour during the whole period of my repose.
It would require but five minutes to renew the air, and the only
difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper
moment for so doing.
This question caused me no little trouble to solve. I at length hit upon
the following plan. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs of
five gallons each and ranged securely around the interior of the car. I
unfastened one of these and, taking two ropes, tied them tightly across
the rim of the wicker-work from one side to the other, placing them
about a foot apart and parallel, so as to form a kind of shelf, upon
which I placed the keg and steadied it. About eight inches below these
ropes I fastened another shelf made of thin plank, on which shelf, and
beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small pitcher was placed. I bored
a hole in the end of the keg over the pitcher and fitted in a plug of
soft wood, which I pushed in or pulled out, until, after a few
experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of tightness at which the
water, oozing from the hole and falling into the pitcher below, would
fill the latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. Having
arranged all this, the rest of the plan was simple. My bed was so
contrived upon the floor of the car as to bring my head, in lying down,
immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was evident that, at the
expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting full, would be forced to run
over and to run over at the mouth, which was somewhat lower than the
rim. It was also evident that the water, falling from a height, could
not do otherwise than fall on my face and awaken me even from the
soundest slumber in the world.
It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements, and
I at once betook myself to bed with full confidence in my invention. Nor
in this matter was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes I was
aroused by my trusty clock, when, having emptied the pitcher into the
bung-hole of the keg and filled the chamber with condensed air, I
retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to my slumber caused
me less discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I finally arose for
the day, it was seven o'clock and the sun was high above the horizon.
I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the earth's
roundness had now become strikingly manifest. Below me in the ocean lay
a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were islands. Overhead, the
sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were brilliantly visible; indeed
they had been so constantly since the first day of ascent. Far away to
the northward I saw a thin, white and exceedingly brilliant line, or
streak, on the edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing
it to be the southern disc of the ices of the Polar sea. My curiosity
was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther to the
north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself directly above
the Pole itself. I now lamented that my great elevation would, in this
case, prevent me from taking as accurate a survey as I could wish.
My condensing apparatus continued in good order, and the balloon still
ascended without any perceptible change. The cold was intense, and
obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When darkness came over
the earth, I went to bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad
daylight all around me. The water-clock was punctual in its duty, and I
slept until next morning soundly, with the exception of the periodical
interruptions.
APRIL 4TH. I arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at the
singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the sea. It
had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had hitherto
worn, being now of a grayish-white and of a luster dazzling to the eye.
The curve of the ocean had become so evident that the entire mass of
water seemed to be tumbling headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and
I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty
cataract. The islands were no longer visible; whether they had passed
down the horizon to the southeast, or whether my increasing elevation
had left them out of sight, it is impossible to say. I was inclined,
however, to the latter opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was
growing more and more apparent. The cold was by no means so intense.
APRIL 5TH. I beheld the singular sight of the sun rising while nearly
the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved in
darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I
again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now very distinct and
appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was
evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity. I fancied I could
again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
westward, but could not be certain.
APRIL 6TH. I was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very moderate
distance, and an immense field of the same material stretching away off
to the horizon in the north. It was evident that if the balloon held its
present course, it would soon arrive above the Frozen Ocean, and I had
now little doubt of ultimately seeing the Pole. During the whole of the
day I continued to near the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon
very suddenly and materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth's
form, which is round but flattened near the poles. When darkness at
length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over
the object of so much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of
observing it.
APRIL 7TH. I arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what
there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself. It
was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but alas! I
had now ascended to so vast a distance that nothing could with accuracy
be made out. Indeed, I estimated that at four o'clock in the morning of
April the seventh the balloon had reached a height of not less than
7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. At all events I undoubtedly
beheld the whole of the earth's diameter; the entire northern hemisphere
lay beneath me like a chart, and the great circle of the equator itself
formed the boundary line of my horizon.
APRIL 8TH. I found a sensible diminution in the earth's size, besides a
material alteration in its general color and appearance. The whole area
partook in different degrees of a tint of pale yellow, and in some
portions had acquired a brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view was
somewhat impeded by clouds near the earth, but nevertheless I could
easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the great lakes in
North America and was holding a course due south which would soon bring
me to the tropics. This circumstance did not fail to give me the most
heartfelt satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken had filled me with
uneasiness, for it was evident that had I continued it much longer,
there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all,
which revolves around the earth in the plane of the equator.
APRIL 9TH. To-day the earth's diameter was greatly diminished, and the
color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The balloon
kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived at nine P. M.
over the Mexican Gulf.
APRIL 12TH. A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction
of the balloon, and, although fully anticipated, afforded me the very
greatest delight. Having reached, in its former course, about the
twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off suddenly at an
acute angle to the eastward, and thus proceeded throughout the day,
keeping nearly, if not altogether, in the exact plane of the moon's
path around the earth.
APRIL 13TH. Great decrease in the earth's apparent size. The moon could
not be seen at all, being nearly above me. I still continued in the
plane of the moon's path, but made little progress eastward.
APRIL 14TH. Extremely rapid decrease in the size of the earth. To-day I
became strongly impressed with the idea that the balloon was holding the
direct course which would bring it immediately to the moon where it
comes nearest the earth. The moon was directly overhead, and
consequently hidden from my view. Great and long continued labor was
necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.
APRIL 16TH. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each of
the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very
small portion of the moon's disk protruding, as it were, on all sides
beyond the huge bulk of the balloon. My agitation was extreme, for I had
now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed,
the labor required by the condenser had increased to such a degree that
I had scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out
of question. I became quite ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion.
It was impossible that human nature could endure this state of intense
suffering much longer.
APRIL 17TH. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that on the thirteenth the earth had diminished; on the
fourteenth, it had still further dwindled; on the fifteenth, a still
more rapid decrease was observable; and on retiring for the night of the
sixteenth, the earth had shrunk to small size. What, therefore, must
have been my amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber
on the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface
beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully increased in volume as to seem
but a comparatively short distance beneath me! I was thunderstruck! No
words can give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and
astonishment, with which I was seized, possessed and altogether
overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me--my teeth chattered--my hair
started up on end. The balloon then had actually burst! These were the
first ideas which hurried through my mind. The balloon had burst! I was
falling--falling with the most impetuous, the most wonderful velocity!
To judge from the immense distance already so quickly passed over, it
could not be more than ten minutes at the farthest before I should meet
the surface of the earth and be hurled into annihilation!
But at length reflection came to my relief. I paused, I considered, and
I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not, in any reason,
have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was evidently approaching
the surface below me, it was with a speed by no means commensurate with
the velocity I had at first conceived. This consideration served to calm
my mind, and I finally succeeded in looking at the matter in its proper
point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me of my
senses when I could not see the vast difference in appearance between
the surface below me and the surface of my mother earth. The latter was
indeed over my head and completely hidden by the balloon, while the
moon--the moon itself in all its glory--lay beneath me and at my feet!
I had indeed arrived at the point where the attraction of the moon had
proved stronger than the attraction of the earth, and so the moon now
appeared to be below me and I was descending upon it. It lay beneath me
like a chart, and I studied it with the deepest attention. The entire
absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river, or body of
water whatsoever, struck me at the first glance as the most
extraordinary feature in its appearance.
APRIL 18TH. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's apparent
bulk--and the evidently increased velocity of my descent began to fill
me with alarm. I had relied on finding some atmosphere at the moon and
on the resistance of this atmosphere to [v]gravitation as affording me a
chance to land in safety. Should I prove to have been mistaken about the
atmosphere, I had nothing better to expect than to be dashed into atoms
against the rugged surface of the earth's [v]satellite. And indeed I
had now every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was
comparatively trivial, while the labor required by the condenser was
diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of a
decreasing rarity of the air.
APRIL 19TH. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the
surface of the moon being frightfully near and my fears excited to the
utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave evident tokens of an
alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had reason to believe its
density considerably increased. By eleven, very little labor was
necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o'clock, with some hesitation,
I ventured to open the car a little and suffered no inconvenience. I
finally threw aside the gum-elastic chamber and unrigged it from around
the car. As might have been expected, spasms and violent headache were
the immediate consequences of an experiment so rash. But this was
forgotten in consideration of other things. My approach was still rapid
in the extreme; and it soon became certain that although I had probably
not been deceived in the expectation of finding a fairly dense
atmosphere, still I had been wrong in supposing that atmosphere dense
enough to support the great weight contained in the car of the balloon.
I was now close upon the planet and coming down with the most terrible
rapidity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing overboard first
my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing apparatus and
gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within the car.
But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible speed, and was
now not more than half a mile from the surface. As a last resource,
therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from
the balloon the car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and
thus clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to
observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach, was
thickly sown with small habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the
very heart of a fantastic city and into the middle of a vast crowd of
ugly little people. I turned from them, and gazing upward at the earth
so lately left, and left perhaps forever, beheld it like a huge, dull
copper shield, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead and tipped on one
of its edges with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold.