By late accounts from Rotterdam that city seems to be in a singularly
high state of philosophical excitement. Indeed phenomena have there
occurred of a nature so completely unexpected, so entirely novel, so
utterly at variance with pre-conceived opinions, as to leave no doubt
on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all Physics
in a ferment, all Dynamics and Astronomy together by the ears.
It appears that on the ---- day of ----, (I am not positive about the
date) a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically mentioned,
were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the goodly and
well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warm--unusually so for
the season--there was hardly a breath of air stirring, and the
multitude were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled with
friendly showers of momentary duration. These occasionally fell from
large white masses of cloud which chequered in a fitful manner the
blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless about noon a slight but
remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly; the clattering
of ten thousand tongues succeeded; and in an instant afterwards ten
thousand faces were upturned towards the heavens, ten thousand pipes
descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and
a shout which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara
resounded long, loud, and furiously, through all the environs of
Rotterdam.
The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From
behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud
already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue
space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid body or substance,
so oddly shaped, so _outré_ in appearance, so whimsically put
together, as not to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be
sufficiently admired by the host of sturdy burghers who stood
open-mouthed and thunderstruck below. What could it be? In the name of
all the vrows and devils in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend?
No one knew--no one could imagine--no one, not even the burgomaster
Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk, had the slightest clue by which to
unravel the mystery: so, as nothing more reasonable could be done,
every one to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the left corner of
his mouth, and, cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon,
puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly--then waddled
back, grunted, paused, and finally--puffed again.
In the meantime, however, lower and still lower towards the goodly
city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much
smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately
discerned. It appeared to be--yes! it _was_ undoubtedly a species of
balloon: but surely no _such_ balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam
before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon entirely
manufactured of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland certainly--yet
here under the very noses of the people, or rather, so to speak, at
some distance _above_ their noses, was the identical thing in
question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of the
precise material which no one had ever known to be used for a similar
purpose. It was too bad--it was not to be borne: it was an insult--an
egregious insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to
the shape of the phenomenon it was even still more reprehensible,
being little or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside
down. And this similitude was by no means lessened, when, upon nearer
inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its
apex, and around the upper rim or base of the cone a circle of little
instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a continual
tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse. Suspended by
blue ribbands to the end of this fantastic machine, there hung by way
of car an enormous drab beaver hat, with a brim superlatively broad,
and a hemispherical crown with a black band and a silver buckle. It
is, however, somewhat remarkable, that many citizens of Rotterdam
swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly before; and indeed the
whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of familiarity, while the
vrow Grettel Phaall, upon sight of it, uttered an exclamation of
joyful surprise, and declared it to be the identical hat of her good
man himself. Now this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as
Phaall, with three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam
about five years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner,
and up to the date of this narrative all attempts had failed of
obtaining any intelligence concerning them whatsoever. To be sure,
some bones which were thought to be human, and mixed up with a
quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a
retired situation to the east of Rotterdam; and some people went so
for as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been committed,
and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans Phaall and his
associates. But to return.
The balloon, for such no doubt it was, had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently
distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very
droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in
height--but this altitude, little as it was, would have been enough to
destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of his tiny car,
but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as high as the
breast, and rigged on to the cords of the balloon. The body of the
little man was more than proportionally broad, giving to his entire
figure a rotundity highly grotesque. His feet, of course, could not be
seen at all, although a horny substance of suspicious nature was
occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car, or, to
speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were enormously
large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected into a cue behind.
His nose was prodigiously long, crooked and inflammatory--his eyes
full, brilliant, and acute--his chin and cheeks, although wrinkled
with age, were broad, puffy, and double--but of ears of any kind or
character, there was not a semblance to be discovered upon any portion
of his head. This odd little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout
of sky-blue satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver
buckles at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material; a
white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and, to
complete his equipment, a blood red silk handkerchief enveloped his
throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his bosom in a
fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.
Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from the
surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly seized
with a fit of trepidation, and appeared altogether disinclined to make
any nearer approach to _terra firma_. Throwing out, therefore, a
quantity of sand from a canvass bag, which he lifted with great
difficulty, he became stationary in an instant. He then proceeded, in
a hurried and agitated manner, to extract from a side pocket of his
surtout a large morocco pocket-book. This he poised suspiciously in
his hand--then eyed it with an air of extreme surprise, and was
evidently astonished at its weight. He at length opened it, and,
drawing therefrom a huge letter sealed with red sealing-wax, and tied
carefully with red tape, let it fall precisely at the feet of the
burgomaster Superbus Von Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it
up. But the aeronaut, still greatly discomposed, and having apparently
no farther business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment
to make busy preparations for departure; and, it being necessary to
discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to re-ascend, the half
dozen bags of sand which he threw out, one after another, without
taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled every one of them,
most unfortunately, upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him
over and over no less than one and twenty times, in the face of every
man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed, however, that the great
Underduk suffered this impertinence on the part of the little old man
to pass off with impunity. It is said, on the contrary, that, during
the period of each and every one of his one and twenty
circumvolutions, he emitted no less than one and twenty distinct and
furious whiffs from his pipe, to which he held fast the whole time
with all his might, and to which he intends holding fast until the day
of his death.
In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far away
above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to
that from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus lost forever to
the wondering eyes of the good citizens of Rotterdam. All attention
was now directed to the letter, whose descent and the consequences
attending thereupon had proved so fatally subversive of both person
and personal dignity, to his Excellency the illustrious burgomaster
Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk. That functionary, however, had not
failed, during his circumgyratory movement, to bestow a thought upon
the important object of securing the packet in question, which was
seen, upon inspection, to have fallen into the most proper hands,
being actually directed to himself and Professor Rub-a-dub, in their
official capacities of President and Vice-President of the Rotterdam
College of Astronomy. It was accordingly opened by those dignitaries
upon the spot, and found to contain the following extraordinary and
indeed very serious communication.
To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President, and
Vice-President of the States' College of Astronomers in the city
of Rotterdam.
Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble artizan by
name Hans Phaall, and by occupation a mender of bellows, who, with
three others, disappeared from Rotterdam, about five years ago, in a
manner which must have been considered by all parties at once sudden,
and extremely unaccountable. If, however, it so please your
Excellencies, I, the writer of this communication, am the identical
Hans Phaall himself. It is well known to most of my fellow citizens,
that for the period of forty years, I continued to occupy the little
square brick building at the head of the alley called Sauerkraut, and
in which I resided at the time of my disappearance. My ancestors have
also resided therein time out of mind, they, as well as myself,
steadily following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession of
mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years that
the heads of all the people have been set agog with the troubles and
politics, no better business than my own could an honest citizen of
Rotterdam either desire or deserve. Credit was good, employment was
never wanting, and on all hands there was no lack of either money or
good will. But, as I was saying, we soon began to feel the terrible
effects of liberty, and long speeches, and radicalism, and all that
sort of thing. People who were formerly the very best customers in the
world had now not a moment of time to think of us at all. They had, so
they said, as much as they could do to read about the revolutions, and
keep up with the march of intellect, and the spirit of the age. If a
fire wanted fanning it could readily be fanned with a newspaper; and,
as the government grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and iron
acquired durability in proportion, for in a very short time there was
not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in need of a
stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a state of
things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and, having a
wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length became
intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the
speediest and most convenient method of putting an end to my life.
Duns, in the meantime left me little leisure for contemplation. My
house was literally besieged from morning till night, so that I began
to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against the bars of his
enclosure. There were three fellows in particular, who worried me
beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my door, and
threatening me with the utmost severity of the law. Upon these three I
internally vowed the bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so happy
as to get them within my clutches, and I believe nothing in the world
but the pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from putting my
plan of suicide into immediate execution, by blowing my brains out
with a blunderbuss. I thought it best, however, to dissemble my wrath,
and to treat them with promises and fair words, until, by some good
turn of fate, an opportunity of vengeance should be afforded me.
One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more than
usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander about the most
obscure streets without any object whatever, until at length I chanced
to stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall. Seeing a chair
close at hand, for the use of customers, I threw myself doggedly into
it, and hardly knowing why, opened the pages of the first volume which
came within my reach. It proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on
Speculative Astronomy, written either by Professor Encke of Berlin, or
by a Frenchman of somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of
information on matters of this nature, and soon became more and more
absorbed in the contents of the book, reading it actually through
twice before I awoke, as it were, to a recollection of what was
passing around me. By this time it began to grow dark, and I directed
my steps towards home. But the treatise had made an indelible
impression on my mind, and as I sauntered along the dusky streets, I
revolved carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes
unintelligible reasonings of the writer. There were some particular
passages which affected my imagination in a powerful and extraordinary
manner. The longer I meditated upon these, the more intense grew the
interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature of my
education in general, and more especially my ignorance on subjects
connected with Natural Philosophy, so far from rendering me diffident
of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or inducing me to
mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in consequence,
merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination; and I was vain
enough, or perhaps reasonable enough, to doubt whether those crude
ideas which, arising in ill-regulated minds, have all the appearance,
may not often in effect possess also the force--the reality--and other
inherent properties of instinct or intuition: and whether, to proceed
a step farther, profundity itself might not, in matters of a purely
speculative nature, be detected as a legitimate source of falsity and
error. In other words, I believed, and still do believe, that truth is
frequently, of its own essence, superficial, and that, in many cases,
the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek her, than in the
actual situations wherein she may be found. Nature herself seemed to
afford me corroboration of these ideas. In the contemplation of the
heavenly bodies it struck me very forcibly that I could not
distinguish a star with nearly as much precision, when I gazed upon it
with earnest, direct and undeviating attention, as when I suffered my
eye only to glance in its vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at
that time aware that this apparent paradox was occasioned by the
centre of the visual area being less susceptible of feeble impressions
of light than the exterior portions of the retina. This knowledge, and
some of another kind, came afterwards in the course of an eventful
period of five years, during which I have dropped the prejudices of my
former humble situation in life, and forgotten the bellows-mender in
far different occupations. But at the epoch of which I speak, the
analogy which the casual observation of a star offered to the
conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with the force of positive
confirmation, and I then finally made up my mind to the course which I
afterwards pursued.
It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed. My
mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the whole
night buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning, and
contriving again to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I repaired
eagerly to the bookseller's stall, and laid out what little ready
money I possessed, in the purchase of some volumes of Mechanics and
Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at home safely with these, I
devoted every spare moment to their perusal, and soon made such
proficiency in studies of this nature as I thought sufficient for the
execution of my plan. In the intervals of this period I made every
endeavor to conciliate the three creditors who had given me so much
annoyance. In this I finally succeeded--partly by selling enough of my
household furniture to satisfy a moiety of their claim, and partly by
a promise of paying the balance upon completion of a little project
which I told them I had in view, and for assistance in which I
solicited their services. By these means--for they were ignorant
men--I found little difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose.
Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife, and
with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what property I
had remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under various pretences,
and without paying any attention to my future means of repayment, no
inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means thus accruing I
proceeded to purchase at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in
pieces of twelve yards each--twine--a lot of the varnish of
caoutchouc--a large and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order--and
several other articles necessary in the construction and equipment of
a balloon of extraordinary dimensions. This I directed my wife to make
up as soon as possible, and gave her all requisite information as to
the particular method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the
twine into a net-work of sufficient dimensions, rigged it with a hoop
and the necessary cords, bought a quadrant, a compass, a spyglass, a
common barometer with some important modifications, and two
astronomical instruments not so generally known. I then took
opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation east of
Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty gallons each,
and one of a larger size--six tinned ware tubes, three inches in
diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in length--a quantity of _a
particular metallic substance or semi-metal_ which I shall not
name--and a dozen demijohns of _a very common acid_. The gas to be
formed from these latter materials is a gas never yet generated by any
other person than myself--or at least never applied to any similar
purpose. The secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that
it of right belongs to a citizen of Nantz in France, by whom it was
conditionally communicated to myself. The same individual submitted to
me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a method of
constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain animal, through
which substance any escape of gas was nearly an impossibility. I found
it however altogether too expensive, and was not sure, upon the whole,
whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum caoutchouc was not
equally as good. I mention this circumstance, because I think it
probable that hereafter the individual in question may attempt a
balloon ascension with the novel gas and material, I have spoken of,
and I do not wish to deprive him of the honor of a very singular
invention.
On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug a
hole two feet deep--the holes forming in this manner a circle of
twenty-five feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being the
station designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three feet in
depth. In each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a canister
containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg holding one
hundred and fifty pounds of cannon powder. These--the keg and the
canisters--I connected in a proper manner with covered trains; and
having let into one of the canisters the end of about four feet of
slow-match, I covered up the hole, and placed the cask over it,
leaving the other end of the match protruding about an inch, and
barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the remaining holes,
and placed the barrels over them in their destined situation.
Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depôt, and
there secreted one of M. Grimm's improvements upon the apparatus for
condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this machine, however, to
require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the
purposes to which I intended making it applicable. But with severe
labor, and unremitting perseverance, I at length met with entire
success in all my preparations. My balloon was soon completed. It
would contain more than forty thousand cubic feet of gas; would take
me up, I calculated, easily with all my implements, and, if I managed
rightly with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the
bargain. It had received three coats of varnish, and I found the
cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk itself--quite as
strong and a good deal less expensive.
Every thing being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of secrecy
in relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit to the
bookseller's stall, and, promising, on my part, to return as soon as
circumstances would admit, I gave her all the money I had left, and
bade her farewell. Indeed I had little fear on her account. She was
what people call a notable woman, and could manage matters in the
world without my assistance. I believe, to tell the truth, she always
looked upon me as an idle body, a mere makeweight, good for nothing
but building castles in the air, and was rather glad to get rid of me.
It was a dark night when I bade her good bye, and, taking with me, as
_aids-de-camp_, the three creditors who had given me so much trouble,
we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements, by a
roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were
deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded
immediately to business.
It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was
dark--there was not a star to be seen, and a drizzling rain falling at
intervals rendered us very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was
concerning my balloon, which in spite of the varnish with which it was
defended, began to grow rather heavy with the moisture: my powder also
was liable to damage. I therefore kept my three duns working with
great diligence, pounding down ice around the central cask, and
stirring the acid in the others. They did not cease, however,
importuning me with questions as to what I intended to do with all
this apparatus, and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible
labor I made them undergo. They could not perceive, so they said, what
good was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin merely to
take a part in such horrible incantations. I began to get uneasy, and
worked away with all my might--for I verily believe the idiots
supposed that I had entered into a compact with the devil, and that,
in short, what I was now doing was nothing better than it should be. I
was, therefore, in great fear of their leaving me altogether. I
contrived, however, to pacify them by promises of immediate payment as
soon as I could bring the present business to a termination. To these
speeches they gave of course their own interpretation--fancying, no
doubt, that at all events I should come into possession of vast
quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I owed, and a
trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say they cared
very little what became of either my soul or my carcase.
In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
inflated. I attached the car therefore, and put all my implements in
it--not forgetting the condensing apparatus, a copious supply of
water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as pemmican, in which
much nutriment is contained in comparatively little bulk. I also
secured in the car a pair of pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly
day-break, and I thought it high time to take my departure. Dropping a
lighted cigar on the ground, as if by accident, I took the
opportunity, in stooping to pick it up, of igniting privately the
piece of slow match, whose end, as I said before, protruded a very
little beyond the lower rim of one of the smaller casks. This
manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of the three duns, and,
jumping into the car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me
to the earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upwards, rapidly
carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden
ballast, and able to have carried up as many more.
Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when,
roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous
manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke, and sulphur, and
legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and blazing metal, that
my very heart sunk within me, and I fell down in the bottom of the
car, trembling with unmitigated terror. Indeed I now perceived that I
had entirely overdone the business, and that the main consequences of
the shock were yet to be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a
second, I felt all the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and,
immediately thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst
abruptly through the night, and seemed to rip the very firmament
asunder. When I afterwards had time for reflection, I did not fail to
attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded myself,
to its proper cause--my situation directly above it, and in the exact
line of its greatest power. But at the time I thought only of
preserving my life. The balloon at first collapsed--then furiously
expanded--then whirled round and round with horrible velocity--and
finally, reeling and staggering like a drunken man, hurled me with
great force over the rim of the car, and left me dangling, at a
terrific height, with my head downwards, and my face outwards from the
balloon, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in length, which
hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom of the
wicker-work, and in which, as I fell, my left foot became most
providentially entangled. It is impossible--utterly impossible--to
form any adequate idea of the horror of my situation. I gasped
convulsively for breath--a shudder resembling a fit of the ague
agitated every nerve and muscle in my frame--I felt my eyes starting
from their sockets--a horrible nausea overwhelmed me--my brain
reeled--and I fainted away.
How long I remained in this state, it is impossible to say. It must,
however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when, at length, I
partially recovered the sense of existence, I found the day breaking,
and the balloon at a 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 rife with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed
there was much of incipient 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 afterwards 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
my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I felt in both my breeches
pockets, and missing therefrom a set of tablets and a tooth-pick case,
I endeavored to account for their disappearance, and, not being able
to do so, felt inexpressibly chagrined. 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. But,
strange to say! I was neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I
felt any emotion at all, it was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at
the cleverness I was about to display in extricating myself from this
dilemma; and I never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as
a question susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped
in the profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of
frequently compressing my lips, putting my fore-finger to the side of
my nose, and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces common to
men who, at ease in their arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of
intricacy or importance. Having, as I thought, sufficiently collected
my ideas, I now, with great caution and deliberation, put my hands
behind my back, and unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to
the waistband of my inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth,
which, being somewhat rusty, turned with great difficulty upon 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 the instrument thus obtained, within my teeth, I now
proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to rest several times
before I could accomplish this manoeuvre--but 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 upwards, 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 towards 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 perpendicular. So far from
it, I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon--for the
change of situation which I had acquired, had forced the bottom of the
car considerably outwards from my position, which was accordingly one
of the most imminent and dangerous peril. It should be remembered,
however, that when I fell, in the first instance, from the car, if I
had fallen with my face turned towards 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,--I say it may
readily be conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I should
have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now accomplished,
and the wonderful adventures of Hans Phaall would have been utterly
lost to posterity. 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, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, in
that extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther
exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic
enjoyment. But this feeling did not fail to die rapidly away, and
thereunto succeeded horror, and dismay, and a chilling 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 madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within
their 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 long duration. In good time came to my
rescue the spirit of despair, and amid horrible curses and convulsive
struggles, I jerked my way bodily upwards, 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. It was not until
sometime afterwards that I recovered myself sufficiently to attend to
the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then, however, examined it with
attention, and found it, to my great relief, uninjured. My implements
were all safe, and I had fortunately lost neither ballast nor
provisions. Indeed, I had so well secured them in their places, that
such an accident was entirely out of the question. Looking at my
watch, I found it six o'clock. I was still rapidly ascending, and my
barometer showed a present altitude of three and three quarter miles.
Immediately beneath me in the ocean, lay a small black object,
slightly oblong in shape, seemingly about the size, and in every way
bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys called a
domino. Bringing my spy-glass to bear upon it, I plainly discerned it
to be a British ninety-four gun ship, close-hauled, and pitching
heavily in the sea with her head to the W. S. W. Besides this ship, I
saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and the sun, which had long
arisen.
It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the
object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind,
that distressed circumstances in Rotterdam, had at length driven me to
the resolution of committing suicide. It was not, however, that to
life itself I had any positive disgust--but that I was harassed beyond
endurance by the adventitious miseries attending my situation. In this
state of mind--wishing to live, yet wearied with life--the treatise at
the stall of the bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I
then finally made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet live--to
leave the world, yet continue to exist--in short, to drop enigmas, I
resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could--to the
moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than I actually
am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the considerations which led
me to believe that an achievement of this nature, although without
doubt difficult, and incontestably full of danger, was not absolutely,
to a bold spirit, beyond the confines of the possible.
The moon's actual distance from the earth was the first thing to be
attended to. Now the mean or average interval between the _centres_ of
the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth's equatorial radii, or only
about 237000 miles. I say the mean or average interval. But it must be
borne in mind, that the form of the moon's orbit being an ellipse of
eccentricity, amounting to no less than 0.05484 of the major semi-axis
of the ellipse itself, and the earth's centre being situated in its
focus, if I could, in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as it
were, in its perigee, the above-mentioned distance would be materially
diminished. But to say nothing, at present, of this possibility, it
was very certain, that at all events, from the 237000 miles I should
have to deduct the radius of the earth, say 4000, and the radius of
the moon, say 1080, in all 5080, leaving an actual interval to be
traversed, under average circumstances, of 231920 miles. Now this, I
reflected, was no very extraordinary distance. Travelling on land has
been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of thirty miles per hour, and
indeed a much greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this
velocity, it would take me no more than 322 days to reach the surface
of the moon. There were, however, many particulars inducing me to
believe that my average rate of travelling might possibly very much
exceed that of thirty miles per hour, and, as these considerations did
not fail to make a deep impression upon my mind, I will mention them
more fully hereafter.
The next point to be regarded, was a matter of far greater importance.
From indications afforded by the barometer, we find that, in
ascensions from the surface of the earth, we have, at the height of
1000 feet, left below us, about one-thirtieth of the entire mass of
atmospheric air--that at 10600, we have ascended through nearly one
third--and that at 18000, which is not far from the elevation of
Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one half of the material, or, at all
events, one half the _ponderable_ body of air incumbent upon our
globe. It is also calculated, that at an altitude not exceeding the
hundredth part of the earth's diameter--that is, not exceeding eighty
miles--the rarefaction would be so excessive, that animal life could,
in no manner, be sustained, and moreover, that the most delicate means
we possess of ascertaining the presence of the atmosphere, would be
inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I did not fail to
perceive that these latter calculations are founded altogether on our
experimental knowledge of the properties of air, and the mechanical
laws regulating its dilation and compression in what may be called,
comparatively speaking, _the immediate vicinity_ of the earth itself;
and, at the same time, it is taken for granted, that animal life is,
and must be, essentially _incapable of modification_ at any given
unattainable distance from the surface. Now all such reasoning, and
from such data, must of course be simply analogical. The greatest
height ever reached by man, was that of 25000 feet, attained in the
aeronautic expedition of Messieurs Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a
moderate altitude, even when compared with the eighty miles in
question; and I could not help thinking that the subject admitted room
for doubt, and great latitude for speculation.
But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any stated altitude,
the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any _farther_ ascension,
is by no means in proportion to the additional height ascended, (as
may be plainly seen from what has been stated before) but in a ratio
constantly decreasing. It is therefore evident that, ascend as high as
we may, we cannot, literally speaking, arrive at a limit beyond which
no atmosphere is to be found. It _must exist_, I argued, it _may_
exist in a state of infinite rarefaction.
On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been wanting to
prove the existence of a real and definite limit to the atmosphere,
beyond which there is absolutely no air whatsoever. But a circumstance
which has been left out of view by those who contend for such a limit,
seemed to me, although no positive refutation of their creed, still a
point worthy very serious investigation. On comparing the intervals
between the successive arrivals of Encke's comet at its perihelion,
after giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all the
disturbances or perturbations due to the attractions of the planets,
it appears that the periods are gradually diminishing--that is to
say--the major axis of the comet's ellipse is growing shorter, in a
slow but perfectly regular decrease. Now this is precisely what ought
to be the case, if we suppose a resistance experienced by the comet
from an extremely _rare etherial medium_ pervading the regions of its
orbit. For it is evident that such a medium must, in retarding its
velocity, increase its centripetal, by weakening its centrifugal
force. In other words, the sun's attraction would be constantly
attaining greater power, and the comet would be drawn nearer at every
revolution. Indeed, there is no other way of accounting for the
variation in question. But again. The real diameter of the same
comet's nebulosity, is observed to contract rapidly as it approaches
the sun, and dilate with equal rapidity in its departure towards its
aphelion. Was I not justifiable in supposing, with M. Valz, that this
apparent condensation of volume has its origin in the compression of
the same etherial medium I have spoken of before, and which is only
denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The lenticular-shaped
phenomenon, also, called the zodiacal light, was a matter worthy of
attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics, and which cannot
be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from the horizon
obliquely upwards, and follows generally the direction of the sun's
equator. It appeared to me evidently, in the nature of a rare
atmosphere extending from the sun outwards, beyond the orbit of Venus
at least, and I believed indefinitely farther. Indeed, this medium I
could not suppose confined to the path of the comet's ellipse, or the
immediate neighborhood of the sun. It was easy, on the contrary, to
imagine it pervading the entire regions of our planetary system,
condensed into what we call atmosphere at the planets themselves, and
in some of them modified by considerations, so to speak, purely
geological.
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 conceived
that, by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M. Grimm, I should
readily be enabled to condense it in sufficient quantities for the
purpose of respiration. This would remove the chief obstacle in a
journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some money and great labor in
adapting the apparatus to the purposes intended, and I confidently
looked forward to its successful application, if I could manage to
complete the voyage within any reasonable period. This brings me back
to the _rate_ at which it might be possible to travel.
It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions from
the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively moderate.
Now the power of elevation lies altogether in the superior lightness
of the gas in the balloon, compared with the atmospheric air; and, at
first sight, it does not appear probable that, as the balloon acquires
altitude, and consequently arrives successively in atmospheric strata
of densities rapidly diminishing--I say it does not appear at all
reasonable that, in this its progress upwards, the original velocity
should be accelerated. On the other hand, I was not aware that, in any
recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the absolute rate of
ascent--although such should have been the case, if on account of
nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through balloons
ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material than the
ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect of such an
escape was only sufficient to counterbalance the effect of some
accelerating power. I now considered, that provided in my passage I
found the medium I had imagined, and provided it should prove to be
actually and _essentially_ what we denominate atmospheric air, it
could make comparatively little difference at what extreme state of
rarefaction I should discover it--that is to say, in regard to my
power of ascending--for the gas in the balloon would not only be
itself subject to a rarefaction partially similar, but, _being what it
was_, would still, at all events, continue specifically lighter than
any compound whatever of mere nitrogen and oxygen. In the meantime the
force of gravitation would be constantly diminishing, in proportion to
the squares of the distances, and thus, with a velocity prodigiously
accelerating, I should at length arrive in those distant regions where
the power of the earth's attractions would be superseded by the
moon's. In accordance with these ideas, I did not think it worth while
to encumber myself with more provisions than would be sufficient for a
period of forty days.
There was still, however, another difficulty which occasioned me some
little disquietude. It has been observed, that in all balloon
ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain attending
respiration, great uneasiness is invariably experienced about the head
and body, often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and other
symptoms of an alarming kind, and growing more and more inconvenient
in proportion to the altitude attained. This was a reflection of a
nature somewhat startling. Was it not probable that these symptoms
would increase indefinitely, or at least until terminated by death
itself? I finally thought not. Their origin was to be looked for in
the progressive removal of the _customary_ atmospheric pressure upon
the surface of the body, and consequent distension of the superficial
blood-vessels--not in any positive disorganization of the animal
system, as in the case of difficulty in breathing, where the
atmospheric density is _chemically insufficient_ for the purpose of a
due renovation of blood in a ventricle of the heart. Unless for
default of this renovation, I could see no reason, therefore, why life
could not be sustained even in a _vacuum_--for the expansion and
compression of chest, commonly called breathing, is action purely
muscular, and the _cause_, not the _effect_, of respiration. In a
word, I conceived that, as the body should become habituated to the
want of atmospheric pressure, these sensations of pain would gradually
diminish, and to endure them while they continued, I relied strongly
upon the iron hardihood of my constitution.
Thus, it may please your Excellencies, I have detailed some, though by
no means all the considerations which led me to form the project of a
lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before you, the result of an
attempt so apparently audacious in conception, and, at all events, so
utterly unparalleled in the annals of human kind.
Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say, three
miles and three quarters, I threw out from the car a quantity of
feathers, and found that I still ascended with sufficient
rapidity--there was, therefore, no necessity for discharging any
ballast. I was glad of this, for I wished to retain with me as much
weight as I could carry, for reasons which will be explained in the
sequel. I as yet suffered no bodily inconvenience, breathing with
great freedom, and feeling no pain whatever in the head. The cat was
lying very demurely upon my coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing
the pigeons with an air of _non chalance_. These latter being tied by
the leg, to prevent their escape, were busily employed in picking up
some grains of rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.
At twenty minutes past six o'clock, the barometer showed an elevation
of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The prospect seemed
unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated by means of spherical
geometry, what a great extent of the earth's area I beheld. The convex
surface of any segment of a sphere is, to the entire surface of the
sphere itself, as the versed sine of the segment is to the diameter of
the sphere. Now in my case, the versed sine--that is to say, the
_thickness_ of the segment beneath me, was about equal to my
elevation, or the elevation of the point of sight above the surface.
"As five miles, then, to eight thousand," would express the proportion
of the earth's area seen by me. In other words, I beheld as much as a
sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The sea
appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the spy-glass, I
could perceive it to be in a state of violent agitation. The ship was
no longer visible, having drifted away, apparently, to the eastward. I
now began to experience, at intervals, severe pain in the head,
especially about the ears--still, however, breathing with tolerable
freedom. The cat and pigeons seemed to suffer no inconvenience
whatsoever.
At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered within a long
series of dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging my
condensing apparatus, and wetting me to the skin. This was, to be
sure, a singular _rencontre_, for I had not believed it possible that
a cloud of this nature could be sustained at so great an elevation. I
thought it best, however, to throw out two five pound pieces of
ballast, reserving still a weight of one hundred and sixty-five
pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above the difficulty, and perceived
immediately, that I had obtained a great increase in my rate of
ascent. In a few seconds after my leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid
lightning shot from one end of it to the other, and caused it to
kindle up, throughout its vast extent, like a mass of ignited and
glowing charcoal. This, it must be remembered, was in the broad light
of day. No fancy may picture the sublimity which might have been
exhibited by a similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of
the night. Hell itself might then have found a fitting image. Even as
it was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and stalk
about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and red ghastly
chasms of the hideous, and unfathomable fire. I had indeed made a
narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very short while longer
within the cloud--that is to say--had not the inconvenience of getting
wet determined me to discharge the ballast, inevitable ruin would have
been the consequence. Such perils, although little considered, are
perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in balloons. I had by
this time, however, attained too great an elevation to be any longer
uneasy on this head.
I was now 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. My eyes, also, gave me great uneasiness. Upon
passing the hand over them they seemed to have protruded from their
sockets in no inconsiderable degree, and all objects in the car, and
even the balloon itself appeared distorted to my vision. 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 accelerated
rate of ascent thus obtained carried me too rapidly, and without
sufficient gradation, into a highly rarefied stratum of the
atmosphere, and the result had nearly proved fatal to my expedition
and to myself. I was suddenly seized with a spasm which lasted for
better 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 pigeons appeared distressed in the
extreme, and struggled to escape; while 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 I had been guilty of in discharging the ballast, and my
agitation was excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death, and
death in a few minutes. The physical suffering I underwent contributed
also to render me nearly incapable of making any exertion for the
preservation of my life. I had, indeed, little power of reflection
left, and the violence of the pain in my head seemed to be greatly on
the increase. Thus I found that my senses would shortly give way
altogether, and I had already clutched one of the valve ropes with the
view of attempting a descent, when the recollection of the trick I had
played the three creditors, and the inevitable consequences to myself,
should I return to Rotterdam, operated to deter me for the moment. 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, however, I was
constrained to perform the operation in the best manner I was able,
and finally succeeded in opening a vein in my right arm, with the
blade of my penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I
experienced a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a
moderate basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me
entirely. I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt getting
on my feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as I could,
I lay still for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of this time I
arose, and found myself freer from absolute _pain_ of any kind than I
had been during the last hour and a quarter of my ascension. The
difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished in a very slight
degree, and I found that it would soon be positively necessary to make
use of my condenser. In the meantime looking towards the cat, who was
again snugly stowed away upon my coat, I discovered, to my infinite
surprise, that she had taken the opportunity of my indisposition to
bring into light a litter of three little kittens. This was an
addition to the number of passengers on my part altogether unexpected;
but I was pleased at the occurrence. It would afford me a chance of
bringing to a kind of test the truth of a surmise, which, more than
anything else, had influenced me in attempting this ascension. I had
imagined that the _habitual_ endurance of the atmospheric pressure at
the surface of the earth was the cause, or nearly so, of the pain
attending animal existence at a distance above the surface. Should the
kittens be found to suffer uneasiness _in an equal degree with their
mother_, I must consider my theory in fault, but a failure to do so I
should look upon as a strong confirmation of my idea.
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
progression would have been apparent in a slight degree even had I not
discharged the ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears
returned, at intervals, 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 breathed, however, at every moment,
with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with a
troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. 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 a deeper tint of blue, and began already to
assume a slight appearance of convexity. 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 discovered, and the proudest
cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the face of the earth.
From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a dim speck, the dark
Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as the heaven is dotted
with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as far as my vision
extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at length to tumble
headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found myself listening
on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract.
The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of
them--a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon--and placed him upon the rim of
the wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking anxiously
around him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud cooing noise--but
could not be persuaded to trust himself from off the car. I took him
up at last, and threw him to about half a dozen yards from the
balloon. He made, however, no attempt to descend as I had expected,
but struggled with great vehemence to get back, uttering at the same
time very shrill and piercing cries. He at length succeeded in
regaining his former station on the rim--but had hardly done so when
his head dropped upon his breast, and he fell dead within the car. The
other one did not prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following the
example of his companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him
downwards with all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his
descent, with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and
in a perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of
sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who seemed
in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a hearty meal
of the dead bird, and then went to sleep with much apparent
satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far evinced not
the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.
At a quarter past eight, being able no longer to draw breath at all
without the most intolerable pain, I proceeded, forthwith, to adjust
around the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser. This
apparatus will require some little explanation, and your Excellencies
will please to bear in mind that my object, in the first place, was to
surround myself and car entirely with a barricade against the highly
rarefied atmosphere in which I was existing--with the intention of
introducing within this barricade, by means of my condenser, a
quantity of this same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the
purposes of respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a
very strong, perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In
this bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a
manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole
bottom of the car--up its sides--and so on, along the outside of the
ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work is attached. Having
pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a complete enclosure on all
sides, and at bottom, it was now necessary to fasten up its top or
mouth, by passing its material over the hoop of the net-work--in other
words between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work was
separated from the hoop to admit this passage, what was to sustain the
car in the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently fastened to
the hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I
therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving the car
suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a portion of the
cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I re-fastened the loops--not
to the hoop, for that would have been impossible, since the cloth now
intervened,--but to a series of large buttons, affixed to the cloth
itself, about three feet below the mouth of the bag--the intervals
between the buttons having been made to correspond to the intervals
between the loops. This done, a few more of the loops were unfastened
from the rim, a farther portion of the cloth introduced, and the
disengaged loops then connected with their proper buttons. In this way
it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the bag between the
net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the hoop would now drop down
within the car, while the whole weight of the car itself, with all its
contents, would be held up merely by the strength of the buttons.
This, at first sight, would seem an inadequate dependence, but it was
by no means so, for the buttons were not only very strong in
themselves, but so close together that a very slight portion of the
whole weight was supported by any one of them. Indeed had the car and
contents been three times heavier than they were, I should not have
been at all uneasy. I now raised up the hoop again within the covering
of gum-elastic, and propped it at nearly its former height by means of
three light poles prepared for the occasion. This was done, of course,
to keep the bag distended at the top, and to preserve the lower part
of the net-work in its proper situation. All that now remained was to
fasten up the mouth of the enclosure; and this was readily
accomplished by gathering the folds of the material together, and
twisting them up very tightly on the inside by means of a kind of
stationary tourniquet.
In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, 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
likewise a fourth window, of the same kind, and corresponding with a
small aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see
perpendicularly down, but having found it impossible to place any
similar contrivance overhead, on account of the peculiar manner of
closing up the opening there, and the consequent wrinkles in the
cloth, I could expect to see no objects situated directly in my
zenith. This, of course, was a matter of little consequence--for, had
I even been able to place a window at top, the balloon itself would
have prevented my making any use of it.
About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular opening
eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim adapted in its
inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim was screwed the
large tube of the condenser, the body of the machine being, of course,
within the chamber of gum-elastic. Through this tube a quantity of the
rare atmosphere circumjacent being drawn by means of a vacuum created
in the body of the machine, was thence discharged in a state of
condensation to mingle with the thin air already in the chamber. This
operation, being repeated several times, at length filled the chamber
with atmosphere proper for all the purposes of respiration. But in so
confined a space it would in a short time necessarily become foul, and
unfit for use from frequent contact with the lungs. It was then
ejected by a small valve at the bottom of the car--the dense air
readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere below. To avoid the
inconvenience of making a total _vacuum_ at any moment within the
chamber this purification was never accomplished all at once, but in a
gradual manner,--the valve being opened only for a few seconds, then
closed again, until one or two strokes from the pump of the condenser
had supplied the place of the atmosphere ejected. For the sake of
experiment I had put the cat and kittens in a small basket, and
suspended it outside the car to a button at the bottom, close by the
valve, through which I could feed them at any moment when necessary. I
did this at some little risk, and before closing the mouth of the
chamber, by reaching under the car with one of the poles
before-mentioned to which a hook had been attached.
By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled the
chamber as explained, 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 negligence, or rather fool-hardiness, of which I had been
guilty in putting off to the very 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 headach,
accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distension about the
wrists, the ancles, and the throat, was nearly all of which I had now
to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater part of the
uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric pressure had actually
_worn off_, as I had expected, and that much of the pain endured for
the last two hours should have been attributed altogether to the
effects of a deficient respiration.
At twenty minutes before nine o'clock--that is to say--a short time
prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury attained
its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I mentioned
before, was one of an extended construction. It then indicated an
altitude on my part of 132000 feet, or five and twenty miles, and I
consequently surveyed at that time an extent of the earth's area
amounting to no less than the three-hundred-and-twentieth part of its
entire superficies. At nine o'clock I had again entirely lost sight of
land to the eastward, but not before I became fully aware that the
balloon was drifting rapidly to the N. N. W. The convexity of the
ocean beneath me was very evident indeed--although my view was often
interrupted by the masses of cloud which floated to and fro. I
observed now that even the lightest vapors never rose to more than ten
miles above the level of the sea.
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 perpendicularly, like a bullet, _en masse_, and with the
greatest velocity--being out of sight in a very few seconds. I did not
at first know what to make of this extraordinary phenomenon: not being
able to believe that my rate of ascent had, of a sudden, met with so
prodigious an acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the
atmosphere was now far too rare to sustain even the feathers--that
they actually fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity--and
that I had been surprised by the united velocities of their descent
and my own elevation.
By ten o'clock I found that I had very little to occupy my immediate
attention. Affairs went on swimmingly, and I believed the balloon to
be going upwards with a speed increasing momentarily, although I had
no longer any means of ascertaining the progression of the increase. I
suffered no pain or uneasiness of any kind, and enjoyed better spirits
than I had at any period since my departure from Rotterdam, busying
myself now in examining the state of my various apparatus, and now in
regenerating the atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point I
determined to attend to at regular intervals of forty minutes, more on
account of the preservation of my health, than from so frequent a
renovation being absolutely necessary. In the meanwhile I could not
help making anticipations. Fancy revelled in the wild and dreamy
regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling herself for once unshackled,
roamed at will among the ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and
unstable land. Now there were hoary and time-honored forests, and
craggy precipices, and waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into
abysses without a bottom. Then I came suddenly into still noon-day
solitudes where no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast
meadows of poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread
themselves out a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever.
Then again I journeyed far down away into another country where it was
all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary-line of clouds. And out of
this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees, like a
wilderness of dreams. And I bore in mind that the shadows of the trees
which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface where they
fell--but sunk slowly and steadily down, and commingled with the
waves, while from the trunks of the trees other shadows were
continually coming out, and taking the place of their brothers thus
entombed. "This then," I said thoughtfully, "is the very reason why
the waters of this lake grow blacker with age, and more melancholy as
the hours run on." But fancies such as these were not the sole
possessors of my brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most
appaling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and
shake the innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of
their possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length
of time to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the
real and palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my undivided
attention.
At five o'clock P.M. being engaged in regenerating the atmosphere
within the chamber, I took that opportunity of observing the cat and
kittens through the valve. The cat herself appeared to suffer again
very much, and I had no hesitation in attributing her uneasiness
chiefly to a difficulty in breathing--but my experiment with the
kittens had resulted very strangely. I had expected of course to see
them betray a sense of pain, although in a less degree than their
mother; and this would have been sufficient to confirm my opinion
concerning the habitual endurance of atmospheric pressure. But I was
not prepared to find them, upon close examination, evidently enjoying
a high degree of health, breathing with the greatest ease and perfect
regularity, and evincing not the slightest sign of any uneasiness
whatever. I could only account for all this by extending my theory,
and supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere around might perhaps
not be, as I had taken for granted, chemically insufficient for the
purposes of life, and that a person born in such a medium might
possibly be unaware of any inconvenience attending its inhalation,
while, upon removal to the denser strata near the earth, he might
endure tortures of a similar nature to those I had so lately
experienced. It has since been to me a matter of deep regret that an
awkward accident at this time occasioned me the loss of my little
family of cats, and deprived me of the insight into this matter which
a continued experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand through
the valve with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeve of my shirt
became entangled in the loop which sustained the basket, and thus, in
a moment, loosened it from the button. Had the whole actually vanished
into air it could not have shot from my sight in a more abrupt and
instantaneous manner. Positively there could not have intervened the
tenth part of a second between the disengagement of the basket and its
absolute and total disappearance with all that it contained. My good
wishes followed it to the earth, but, of course, I had no hope that
either cat or kittens would ever live to tell the tale of their
misfortune.
At six o'clock 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 view 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 circumstance, although of
course fully anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal of
pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold the
rising luminary many hours at least 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, would I enjoy the
light of the sun for a longer and a longer period. I now determined to
keep a journal of my passage, reckoning the days from one to
twenty-four hours continuously, without taking into consideration the
intervals of darkness.
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 totally 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 atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated in the interim?
To breathe it for more than an hour, at the farthest, would be a
matter of impossibility; or if even this term could be extended to an
hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might ensue. The
consideration of this dilemma gave me no little disquietude, 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 veriest slave of custom--and
that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed
_essentially_ important, which are only so _at all_ by his having
rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do
without sleep--but I might easily bring myself to feel no
inconvenience from being awakened at regular intervals of an hour
during the whole period of my repose. It would require but five
minutes at most, to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner,
and the only real difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing
myself at the proper moment for so doing. But this was a question
which I am willing to confess, occasioned me no little trouble in its
solution. To be sure, I had heard of the student who, to prevent his
falling asleep over his books, held in one hand a ball of copper, the
din of whose descent into a basin of the same metal on the floor
beside his chair, served effectually to startle him up, if, at any
moment, he should be overcome with drowsiness. My own case, however,
was very different indeed, and left me no room for any similar
idea--for I did not wish to keep awake, but to be aroused from slumber
at regular intervals of time. I at length hit upon the following
expedient, which, simple as it may seem, was hailed by me, at the
moment of discovery, as an invention fully equal to that of the
telescope, the steam-engine, or the art of printing itself.
It is necessary to premise that the balloon, at the elevation now
attained, continued its course upwards with an even and undeviating
ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect
that it would have been impossible to detect in it the slightest
vacillation whatever. This circumstance favored me greatly in the
project I now determined to adopt. My supply of water had been put on
board in kegs containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely
around the interior of the car. I unfastened one of these--took two
ropes, and 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 in a horizontal position. About eight inches immediately
below these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of the car, I
fastened another shelf--but made of thin plank, being the only similar
piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf, and exactly beneath one
of the rims of the keg a small earthen pitcher was deposited. I now
bored a hole in the end of the keg over the pitcher, and fitted in a
plug of soft wood, cut in a tapering or conical shape. This plug I
pushed in or pulled out, as might happen, 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, should
fill the latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. This, of
course, was a matter briefly and easily ascertained by noticing the
proportion of the pitcher filling in any given time. Having arranged
all this, the rest of the plan is obvious. 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, thus falling from a
height of better than four feet, could not do otherwise than fall upon
my face, and that the sure consequence would be, to waken me up
instantaneously, even from the soundest slumber in the world.
It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements,
and I immediately betook myself to bed with full confidence in the
efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter was I disappointed.
Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused by my trusty chronometer,
when, having emptied the pitcher into the bung-hole of the keg, and
performed the duties of the condenser, I retired again to bed. These
regular interruptions to my slumber caused me even less discomfort
than I had anticipated, and when I finally arose for the day it was
seven o'clock, and the sun had attained many degrees above the line of
my horizon.
_April 3d_. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the
earth's apparent convexity increased in a material degree. Below me in
the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were
islands. Far away to the northward I perceived 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 disk 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 placed directly above the Pole itself. I now
lamented that my great elevation would, in this case, prevent my
taking as accurate a survey as I could wish. Much however might be
ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary nature occurred during
the day. My apparatus all continued in good order, and the balloon
still ascended without any perceptible vacillation. The cold was
intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When
darkness came over the earth, I betook myself to bed, although it was
for many hours afterwards broad daylight all around my immediate
situation. The water-clock was punctual in its duty, and I slept until
next morning soundly--with the exception of the periodical
interruption.
_April 4th_. 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 lustre dazzling
to the eye. 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. Cold by no means so
intense. Nothing of importance occurred, and I passed the day in
reading--having taken care to supply myself with books.
_April 5th_. Beheld the singular phenomenon 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. Fancied I could
again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward--and one also to the
westward--but could not be certain. Weather moderate. Nothing of any
consequence happened during the day. Went early to bed.
_April 6th_. 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. Towards
night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and materially increased,
owing undoubtedly to the earth's form being that of an oblate
spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened regions in the vicinity
of the Arctic circle. 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_. 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 discerned. Indeed, to judge from the progression of the
numbers indicating my various altitudes respectively at different
periods, between six A.M. on the second of April, and twenty minutes
before nine A.M. of the same day, (at which time the barometer ran
down,) it might be fairly inferred that the balloon had now, at four
o'clock in the morning of April the seventh, reached a height of _not
less_ certainly than 7254 miles above the surface of the sea. This
elevation may appear immense, but the estimate upon which it is
calculated gave a result in all probability far inferior to the truth.
At all events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the earth's major
diameter--the entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me like a chart
orthographically projected--and the great circle of the equator itself
formed the boundary line of my horizon. Your Excellencies may however,
readily imagine that the confined regions hitherto unexplored within
the limits of the Arctic circle, although situated directly beneath
me, and therefore seen without any appearance of being foreshortened,
were still, in themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too
great a distance from the point of sight to admit of any very accurate
examination. Nevertheless what could be seen was of a nature singular
and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before mentioned, and
which, with slight qualification may be called the limit of human
discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or nearly unbroken sheet of
ice continues to extend. In the first few degrees of this its
progress, its surface is very sensibly flattened--farther on depressed
into a plane--and finally, becoming _not a little concave_, it
terminates at the Pole itself in a circular centre, sharply defined,
whose apparent diameter subtended at the balloon an angle of about
sixty-five seconds; and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was, at
all times darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere, and
occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable
blackness. Farther than this little could be ascertained. By twelve
o'clock the circular centre had materially decreased in circumference,
and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely--the balloon passing
over the western limb of the ice, and floating away rapidly in the
direction of the equator.
_April 8th_. Found a sensible diminution in the earth's apparent
diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and
appearance. The whole visible 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 downwards was also considerably
impeded by the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of the surface being
loaded with clouds between whose masses I could only now and then
obtain a glimpse of the earth itself. This difficulty of direct vision
had troubled me more or less for the last forty-eight hours--but my
present enormous elevation brought closer together, as it were, the
floating bodies of vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course,
more and more palpable in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless I
could easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the range of
great lakes in the continent of 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, whose orbit is
inclined to the ecliptic at only the small angle of 5°, 8', 48".
_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 northern edge of the Mexican gulf.
_April 10th_. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five o'clock
this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound, for which I
could in no manner account. It was of very brief duration, but, while
it lasted, resembled nothing in the world of which I had any previous
experience. It is needless to say, that I became excessively alarmed,
having, in the first instance, attributed the noise to the bursting of
the balloon. I examined all my apparatus, however, with great
attention, and could discover nothing out of order. Spent a great part
of the day in meditating upon an occurrence so extraordinary, but
could find no means whatever of accounting for it. Went to bed
dissatisfied, and in a pitiable state of anxiety and agitation.
_April 11th_. Found a startling diminution in the apparent diameter of
the earth, and a considerable increase, now observable for the first
time, in that of the moon itself, which wanted only a few days of
being full. It now required long and excessive labor to condense
within the chamber sufficient atmospheric air for the sustenance of
life.
_April 12th_. A singular alteration took place in regard to the
direction of the balloon, and although fully anticipated, afforded me
the most unequivocal 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 lunar ellipse_. What was worthy of remark, a very
perceptible vacillation in the car was a consequence of this change of
route--a vacillation which prevailed, in a more or less degree, for a
period of many hours.
_April 13th_. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the loud,
crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought long upon the
subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory conclusion. Great
decrease in the earth's apparent diameter which now subtended from the
balloon an angle of very little more than twenty-five degrees. The
moon could not be seen at all, being nearly in my zenith. I still
continued in the plane of the ellipse, but made little progress to the
eastward.
_April 14th_. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the earth.
To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the balloon was
now actually running up the line of apsides to the point of
perigee--in other words, holding the direct course which would bring
it immediately to the moon in that part of its orbit, the nearest to
the earth. The moon itself was directly over-head, and consequently
hidden from my view. Great and long-continued labor necessary for the
condensation of the atmosphere.
_April 15th_. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could now
be traced upon the earth with anything approaching to distinctness.
About twelve o'clock I became aware, for the third time, of that
unearthly and appalling sound which had so astonished me before. It
now, however, continued for some moments, and gathered horrible
intensity as it continued. At length, while stupified and
terror-stricken I stood in expectation of, I know not what hideous
destruction, the car vibrated with excessive violence, and a gigantic
and flaming mass of some material which I could not distinguish, came
with the voice of a thousand thunders, roaring and booming by the
balloon. When my fears and astonishment had in some degree subsided, I
had little difficulty in supposing it to be some mighty volcanic
fragment ejected from that world to which I was so rapidly
approaching, and, in all probability, one of that singular class of
substances occasionally picked up on the earth, and termed meteoric
stones for want of a better appellation.
_April 16th_. To-day, looking upwards 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 circumference 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 now required by the condenser had
increased to a most oppressive degree, and allowed me scarcely any
respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out of the 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. During the now brief interval of darkness a
meteoric stone again passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of these
phenomena began to occasion me much anxiety and apprehension. The
consequence of a concussion with any one of them, would have been
inevitable destruction to me and my balloon.
_April 17th_. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an angular
breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth, this had greatly
diminished--on the fifteenth, a still more rapid decrease was
observable--and on retiring for the night of the sixteenth I had
noticed an angle of no more than about seven degrees and fifteen
minutes. 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 _augmented_ in volume as to subtend no less than
thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular diameter! I was thunderstruck.
No words--no earthly expression 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 tumultuous ideas which
hurried through my mind--"the balloon had positively burst. I was
falling--falling--falling--with the most intense, the most impetuous,
the most unparalleled 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. There
was some mistake. Not the red thunderbolt itself could have so
impetuously descended. 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 so horribly conceived. This
consideration served to calm the perturbation of my mind, and I
finally succeeded in regarding the phenomenon 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.
The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this extraordinary
change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after all, that part of
the adventure least susceptible of explanation. For the
_bouleversement_ in itself was not only natural and inevitable, but
had been long actually anticipated as a circumstance to be expected
whenever I should arrive at that exact point of my voyage where the
attraction of the planet should be superseded by the attraction of the
satellite--or, more precisely, where the gravitation of the balloon
towards the earth should be less powerful than its gravitation towards
the moon. To be sure I arose from a sound slumber with all my senses
in confusion to the contemplation of a very startling phenomenon, and
one which, although expected, was not expected at the moment. The
revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an easy and
gradual manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I even been
awake at the time of the occurrence, I should have been made aware of
it by any _internal_ evidence of an inversion--that is to say by any
inconvenience or disarrangement either about my person or about my
apparatus.
It is almost needless to say that upon coming to a due sense of my
situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed every
faculty of my soul, my attention was, in the first place, wholly
directed to the contemplation of the general physical appearance of
the moon. It lay beneath me like a chart, and although I judged it to
be still at no inconsiderable distance, the indentures of its surface
were defined to my vision with a most striking and altogether
unaccountable distinctness. 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
geological condition. Yet, strange to say! I beheld vast level regions
of a character decidedly alluvial--although by far the greater portion
of the hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic
mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of
artificial than of natural protuberances. The highest among them does
not exceed three and three quarter miles in perpendicular
elevation--but a map of the volcanic districts of the Campi Phlegræi
would afford to your Excellencies a better idea of their general
surface than any unworthy description I might think proper to attempt.
The greater part of them were in a state of evident eruption, and gave
me fearfully to understand their fury and their power by the repeated
thunders of the miscalled meteoric stones which now rushed upwards by
the balloon with a frequency more and more appalling.
_April 18th_. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's
apparent bulk, and the evidently accelerated velocity of my descent
began to fill me with alarm. It will be remembered that, in the
earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of a passage to
the moon, the existence in its vicinity of an atmosphere dense in
proportion to the bulk of the planet had entered largely into my
calculations--this too in spite of many theories to the contrary, and,
it may be added, in spite of the positive evidence of our senses. Upon
the resistance, or more properly, upon the support of this atmosphere,
existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of course, entirely
depended for the safety of my ultimate descent. Should I then, after
all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in consequence nothing better
to expect as a _finale_ to my adventure than being dashed into atoms
against the rugged surface of the satellite. And indeed I had now
every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was
comparatively trifling, while the labor required by the condenser was
diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of
a decreasing rarity in the air.
_April 19th_. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the
surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my apprehensions
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 unscrew the tourniquet, when, finding no
inconvenience from having done so, I finally threw open the
gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it from around the car. As might
have been expected, spasms and violent headach were the immediate
consequence of an experiment so precipitate and full of danger. But
these and other difficulties attending respiration, as they were by no
means so great as to put me in peril of my life, I determined to
endure as I best could, in consideration of my leaving them behind me
momentarily in my approach to the denser strata near the moon. This
approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme, and it soon
became alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not been
deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in proportion to
the mass of the satellite, still I had been wrong in supposing this
density, even at the surface, at all adequate to the support of the
great weight contained in the car of my balloon. Yet this _should_
have been the case, and in an equal degree as at the surface of the
earth, the actual gravity of bodies at either planet being in the
exact ratio of their atmospheric condensation. That it _was not_ the
case however my precipitous downfall gave testimony enough--why it was
not so, can only be explained by a reference to those possible
geological disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all
events I was now close upon the planet, and coming down with most
terrible impetuosity. 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 individual
article within the car. But it was all to no purpose. I still fell
with horrible rapidity, and was now not more than half a mile at
farthest 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 hoop of the net-work, I had barely time to
observe that the whole country as far as the eye could reach was
thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I tumbled
headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking city, and into
the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people, who none of them
uttered a single syllable, or gave themselves the least trouble to
render me assistance, but stood, like a parcel of idiots, grinning in
a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me and my balloon askant with their
arms set a-kimbo. I turned from them in contempt, and gazing upwards
at the earth so lately left, and left perhaps forever, beheld it like
a huge, dull, copper shield, about two degrees in diameter, fixed
immoveably in the heavens overhead, and tipped on one of its edges
with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold. No traces of land
or water could be discovered, and the whole was clouded with variable
spots, and belted with tropical and equatorial zones.
Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great
anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had, at
length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam, arrived
in safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the most
extraordinary, and the most momentous ever accomplished, undertaken,
or conceived by any denizen of earth. But my adventures yet remain to
be related. And indeed your Excellencies may well imagine that after a
residence of five years upon a planet not only deeply interesting in
its own peculiar character, but rendered doubly so by its intimate
connection, in capacity of satellite, with the world inhabited by man,
I may have intelligence for the private ear of the States' College of
Astronomers of far more importance than the details, however
wonderful, of the mere _voyage_ which so happily concluded. This is,
in fact, the case. I have much--very much which it would give me the
greatest pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of the climate of
the planet--of its wonderful alternations of heat and cold--of
unmitigated and burning sunshine for one fortnight, and more than
polar severity of winter for the next--of a constant transfer of
moisture, by distillation _in vacuo_, from the point beneath the sun
to the point the farthest from it--of a variable zone of running
water--of the people themselves--of their manners, customs, and
political institutions--of their peculiar physical construction--of
their ugliness--of their want of ears, those useless appendages in an
atmosphere so peculiarly modified as to be insufficient for the
conveyance of any but the loudest sounds--of their consequent
ignorance of the use and properties of speech--of their substitute for
speech in a singular method of inter-communication--of the
incomprehensible connection between each particular individual in the
moon, with some particular individual on the earth--a connection
analogous with, and depending upon that of the orbs of the planet and
the satellite, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the
inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and destinies of
the inhabitants of the other--and above all, if it so please your
Excellencies, above all of these dark and hideous mysteries which lie
in the outer regions of the moon--regions which, owing to the almost
miraculous accordance of the satellite's rotation on its own axis with
its sideral revolution about the earth, have never yet been turned,
and, by God's mercy, never shall be turned to the scrutiny of the
telescopes of man. All this, and more--much more--would I most
willingly detail. But to be brief, I must have my reward. I am pining
for a return to my family and to my home: and as the price of any
farther communications on my part--in consideration of the light which
I have it in my power to throw upon many very important branches of
physical and metaphysical science--I must solicit, through the
influence of your honorable body, a pardon for the crime of which I
have been guilty in the death of the creditors upon my departure from
Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the present paper. Its bearer,
an inhabitant of the moon, whom I have prevailed upon, and properly
instructed, to be my messenger to the earth, will await your
Excellencies' pleasure, and return to me with the pardon in question,
if it can, in any manner, be obtained.