strange conditions.
Every object thrown from the projectile would follow the same course
and never stop until it did. There was a subject for conversation which
the whole evening could not exhaust.
Besides, the excitement of the three travelers increased as they drew
near the end of their journey. They expected unforseen incidents, and
new phenomena; and nothing would have astonished them in the frame of
mind they then were in. Their overexcited imagination went faster than
the projectile, whose speed was evidently diminishing, though
insensibly to themselves. But the moon grew larger to their eyes, and
they fancied if they stretched out their hands they could seize it.
The next day, the 5th of November, at five in the morning, all three
were on foot. That day was to be the last of their journey, if all
calculations were true. That very night, at twelve o’clock, in eighteen
hours, exactly at the full moon, they would reach its brilliant disc.
The next midnight would see that journey ended, the most extraordinary
of ancient or modern times. Thus from the first of the morning, through
the scuttles silvered by its rays, they saluted the orb of night with a
confident and joyous hurrah.
The moon was advancing majestically along the starry firmament. A few
more degrees, and she would reach the exact point where her meeting
with the projectile was to take place.
According to his own observations, Barbicane reckoned that they would
land on her northern hemisphere, where stretch immense plains, and
where mountains are rare. A favorable circumstance if, as they thought,
the lunar atmosphere was stored only in its depths.
“Besides,” observed Michel Ardan, “a plain is easier to disembark upon
than a mountain. A Selenite, deposited in Europe on the summit of Mont
Blanc, or in Asia on the top of the Himalayas, would not be quite in
the right place.”
“And,” added Captain Nicholl, “on a flat ground, the projectile will
remain motionless when it has once touched; whereas on a declivity it
would roll like an avalanche, and not being squirrels we should not
come out safe and sound. So it is all for the best.”
Indeed, the success of the audacious attempt no longer appeared
doubtful. But Barbicane was preoccupied with one thought; but not
wishing to make his companions uneasy, he kept silence on this subject.
The direction the projectile was taking toward the moon’s northern
hemisphere, showed that her course had been slightly altered. The
discharge, mathematically calculated, would carry the projectile to the
very center of the lunar disc. If it did not land there, there must
have been some deviation. What had caused it? Barbicane could neither
imagine nor determine the importance of the deviation, for there were
no points to go by.
He hoped, however, that it would have no other result than that of
bringing them nearer the upper border of the moon, a region more
suitable for landing.
Without imparting his uneasiness to his companions, Barbicane contented
himself with constantly observing the moon, in order to see whether the
course of the projectile would not be altered; for the situation would
have been terrible if it failed in its aim, and being carried beyond
the disc should be launched into interplanetary space. At that moment,
the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc, showed its convexity.
If the sun’s rays had struck it obliquely, the shadow thrown would have
brought out the high mountains, which would have been clearly detached.
The eye might have gazed into the crater’s gaping abysses, and followed
the capricious fissures which wound through the immense plains. But all
relief was as yet leveled in intense brilliancy. They could scarcely
distinguish those large spots which give the moon the appearance of a
human face.
“Face, indeed!” said Michel Ardan; “but I am sorry for the amiable
sister of Apollo. A very pitted face!”
But the travelers, now so near the end, were incessantly observing this
new world. They imagined themselves walking through its unknown
countries, climbing its highest peaks, descending into its lowest
depths. Here and there they fancied they saw vast seas, scarcely kept
together under so rarefied an atmosphere, and water-courses emptying
the mountain tributaries. Leaning over the abyss, they hoped to catch
some sounds from that orb forever mute in the solitude of space. That
last day left them.
They took down the most trifling details. A vague uneasiness took
possession of them as they neared the end. This uneasiness would have
been doubled had they felt how their speed had decreased. It would have
seemed to them quite insufficient to carry them to the end. It was
because the projectile then “weighed” almost nothing. Its weight was
ever decreasing, and would be entirely annihilated on that line where
the lunar and terrestrial attractions would neutralize each other.
But in spite of his preoccupation, Michel Ardan did not forget to
prepare the morning repast with his accustomed punctuality. They ate
with a good appetite. Nothing was so excellent as the soup liquefied by
the heat of the gas; nothing better than the preserved meat. Some
glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, causing Michel Ardan to
remark that the lunar vines, warmed by that ardent sun, ought to
distill even more generous wines; that is, if they existed. In any
case, the far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his
collection some precious cuttings of the Medoc and Cote d’Or, upon
which he founded his hopes.
Reiset and Regnaut’s apparatus worked with great regularity. Not an
atom of carbonic acid resisted the potash; and as to the oxygen,
Captain Nicholl said “it was of the first quality.” The little watery
vapor enclosed in the projectile mixing with the air tempered the
dryness; and many apartments in London, Paris, or New York, and many
theaters, were certainly not in such a healthy condition.
But that it might act with regularity, the apparatus must be kept in
perfect order; so each morning Michel visited the escape regulators,
tried the taps, and regulated the heat of the gas by the pyrometer.
Everything had gone well up to that time, and the travelers, imitating
the worthy Joseph T. Maston, began to acquire a degree of embonpoint
which would have rendered them unrecognizable if their imprisonment had
been prolonged to some months. In a word, they behaved like chickens in
a coop; they were getting fat.
In looking through the scuttle Barbicane saw the specter of the dog,
and other divers objects which had been thrown from the projectile,
obstinately following them. Diana howled lugubriously on seeing the
remains of Satellite, which seemed as motionless as if they reposed on
solid earth.
“Do you know, my friends,” said Michel Ardan, “that if one of us had
succumbed to the shock consequent on departure, we should have had a
great deal of trouble to bury him? What am I saying? to _etherize_ him,
as here ether takes the place of earth. You see the accusing body would
have followed us into space like a remorse.”
“That would have been sad,” said Nicholl.
“Ah!” continued Michel, “what I regret is not being able to take a walk
outside. What voluptuousness to float amid this radiant ether, to bathe
oneself in it, to wrap oneself in the sun’s pure rays. If Barbicane had
only thought of furnishing us with a diving apparatus and an air-pump,
I could have ventured out and assumed fanciful attitudes of feigned
monsters on the top of the projectile.”
“Well, old Michel,” replied Barbicane, “you would not have made a
feigned monster long, for in spite of your diver’s dress, swollen by
the expansion of air within you, you would have burst like a shell, or
rather like a balloon which has risen too high. So do not regret it,
and do not forget this—as long as we float in space, all sentimental
walks beyond the projectile are forbidden.”
Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced to a certain extent. He
admitted that the thing was difficult but not impossible, a word which
he never uttered.
The conversation passed from this subject to another, not failing him
for an instant. It seemed to the three friends as though, under present
conditions, ideas shot up in their brains as leaves shoot at the first
warmth of spring. They felt bewildered. In the middle of the questions
and answers which crossed each other, Nicholl put one question which
did not find an immediate solution.
“Ah, indeed!” said he; “it is all very well to go to the moon, but how
to get back again?”
His two interlocutors looked surprised. One would have thought that
this possibility now occurred to them for the first time.
“What do you mean by that, Nicholl?” asked Barbicane gravely.
“To ask for means to leave a country,” added Michel, “When we have not
yet arrived there, seems to me rather inopportune.”
“I do not say that, wishing to draw back,” replied Nicholl; “but I
repeat my question, and I ask, ‘How shall we return?’”
“I know nothing about it,” answered Barbicane.
“And I,” said Michel, “if I had known how to return, I would never have
started.”
“There’s an answer!” cried Nicholl.
“I quite approve of Michel’s words,” said Barbicane; “and add, that the
question has no real interest. Later, when we think it is advisable to
return, we will take counsel together. If the Columbiad is not there,
the projectile will be.”
“That is a step certainly. A ball without a gun!”
“The gun,” replied Barbicane, “can be manufactured. The powder can be
made. Neither metals, saltpeter, nor coal can fail in the depths of the
moon, and we need only go 8,000 leagues in order to fall upon the
terrestrial globe by virtue of the mere laws of weight.”
“Enough,” said Michel with animation. “Let it be no longer a question
of returning: we have already entertained it too long. As to
communicating with our former earthly colleagues, that will not be
difficult.”
“And how?”
“By means of meteors launched by lunar volcanoes.”
“Well thought of, Michel,” said Barbicane in a convinced tone of voice.
“Laplace has calculated that a force five times greater than that of
our gun would suffice to send a meteor from the moon to the earth, and
there is not one volcano which has not a greater power of propulsion
than that.”
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Michel; “these meteors are handy postmen, and cost
nothing. And how we shall be able to laugh at the post-office
administration! But now I think of it—”
“What do you think of?”
“A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile, and
we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?”
“The deuce!” answered Nicholl. “Do you consider the weight of a thread
250,000 miles long nothing?”
“As nothing. They could have trebled the Columbiad’s charge; they could
have quadrupled or quintupled it!” exclaimed Michel, with whom the verb
took a higher intonation each time.
“There is but one little objection to make to your proposition,”
replied Barbicane, “which is that, during the rotary motion of the
globe, our thread would have wound itself round it like a chain on a
capstan, and that it would inevitably have brought us to the ground.”
“By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!” said Michel, “I have nothing
but impracticable ideas to-day; ideas worthy of J. T. Maston. But I
have a notion that, if we do not return to earth, J. T. Maston will be
able to come to us.”
“Yes, he’ll come,” replied Barbicane; “he is a worthy and a courageous
comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still buried in
the soil of Florida? Is cotton and nitric acid wanted wherewith to
manufacture the pyroxyle? Will not the moon pass the zenith of Florida?
In eighteen years’ time will she not occupy exactly the same place as
to-day?”
“Yes,” continued Michel, “yes, Maston will come, and with him our
friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, all the members of the Gun Club, and
they will be well received. And by and by they will run trains of
projectiles between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J. T. Maston!”
It is probable that, if the Hon. J. T. Maston did not hear the hurrahs
uttered in his honor, his ears at least tingled. What was he doing
then? Doubtless, posted in the Rocky Mountains, at the station of
Long’s Peak, he was trying to find the invisible projectile gravitating
in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions, we must allow that
they were not far behind him; and that, under the influence of a
strange excitement, they were devoting to him their best thoughts.
But whence this excitement, which was evidently growing upon the
tenants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be doubted. This
strange irritation of the brain, must it be attributed to the peculiar
circumstances under which they found themselves, to their proximity to
the orb of night, from which only a few hours separated them, to some
secret influence of the moon acting upon their nervous system? Their
faces were as rosy as if they had been exposed to the roaring flames of
an oven; their voices resounded in loud accents; their words escaped
like a champagne cork driven out by carbonic acid; their gestures
became annoying, they wanted so much room to perform them; and, strange
to say, they none of them noticed this great tension of the mind.
“Now,” said Nicholl, in a short tone, “now that I do not know whether
we shall ever return from the moon, I want to know what we are going to
do there?”
“What we are going to do there?” replied Barbicane, stamping with his
foot as if he was in a fencing saloon; “I do not know.”
“You do not know!” exclaimed Michel, with a bellow which provoked a
sonorous echo in the projectile.
“No, I have not even thought about it,” retorted Barbicane, in the same
loud tone.
“Well, I know,” replied Michel.
“Speak, then,” cried Nicholl, who could no longer contain the growling
of his voice.
“I shall speak if it suits me,” exclaimed Michel, seizing his
companions’ arms with violence.
“ _It must_ suit you,” said Barbicane, with an eye on fire and a
threatening hand. “It was you who drew us into this frightful journey,
and we want to know what for.”
“Yes,” said the captain, “now that I do not know _where_ I am going, I
want to know _why_ I am going.”
“Why?” exclaimed Michel, jumping a yard high, “why? To take possession
of the moon in the name of the United States; to add a fortieth State
to the Union; to colonize the lunar regions; to cultivate them, to
people them, to transport thither all the prodigies of art, of science,
and industry; to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more civilized
than we are; and to constitute them a republic, if they are not already
one!”
“And if there are no Selenites?” retorted Nicholl, who, under the
influence of this unaccountable intoxication, was very contradictory.
“Who said that there were no Selenites?” exclaimed Michel in a
threatening tone.
“I do,” howled Nicholl.
“Captain,” said Michel, “do not repeat that insolence, or I will knock
your teeth down your throat!”
The two adversaries were going to fall upon each other, and the
incoherent discussion threatened to merge into a fight, when Barbicane
intervened with one bound.
“Stop, miserable men,” said he, separating his two companions; “if
there are no Selenites, we will do without them.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Michel, who was not particular; “yes, we will do
without them. We have only to make Selenites. Down with the Selenites!”
“The empire of the moon belongs to us,” said Nicholl.
“Let us three constitute the republic.”
“I will be the congress,” cried Michel.
“And I the senate,” retorted Nicholl.
“And Barbicane, the president,” howled Michel.
“Not a president elected by the nation,” replied Barbicane.
“Very well, a president elected by the congress,” cried Michel; “and as
I am the congress, you are unanimously elected!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for President Barbicane,” exclaimed Nicholl.
“Hip! hip! hip!” vociferated Michel Ardan.
Then the president and the senate struck up in a tremendous voice the
popular song “Yankee Doodle,” while from the congress resounded the
masculine tones of the “Marseillaise.”
Then they struck up a frantic dance, with maniacal gestures, idiotic
stampings, and somersaults like those of the boneless clowns in the
circus. Diana, joining in the dance, and howling in her turn, jumped to
the top of the projectile. An unaccountable flapping of wings was then
heard amid most fantastic cock-crows, while five or six hens fluttered
like bats against the walls.
Then the three traveling companions, acted upon by some unaccountable
influence above that of intoxication, inflamed by the air which had set
their respiratory apparatus on fire, fell motionless to the bottom of
the projectile.
CHAPTER VIII.
AT SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN LEAGUES
What had happened? Whence the cause of this singular intoxication, the
consequences of which might have been very disastrous? A simple blunder
of Michel’s, which, fortunately, Nicholl was able to correct in time.
After a perfect swoon, which lasted some minutes, the captain,
recovering first, soon collected his scattered senses. Although he had
breakfasted only two hours before, he felt a gnawing hunger, as if he
had not eaten anything for several days. Everything about him, stomach
and brain, were overexcited to the highest degree. He got up and
demanded from Michel a supplementary repast. Michel, utterly done up,
did not answer.
Nicholl then tried to prepare some tea destined to help the absorption
of a dozen sandwiches. He first tried to get some fire, and struck a
match sharply. What was his surprise to see the sulphur shine with so
extraordinary a brilliancy as to be almost unbearable to the eye. From
the gas-burner which he lit rose a flame equal to a jet of electric
light.
A revelation dawned on Nicholl’s mind. That intensity of light, the
physiological troubles which had arisen in him, the overexcitement of
all his moral and quarrelsome faculties—he understood all.
“The oxygen!” he exclaimed.
And leaning over the air apparatus, he saw that the tap was allowing
the colorless gas to escape freely, life-giving, but in its pure state
producing the gravest disorders in the system. Michel had blunderingly
opened the tap of the apparatus to the full.
Nicholl hastened to stop the escape of oxygen with which the atmosphere
was saturated, which would have been the death of the travelers, not by
suffocation, but by combustion. An hour later, the air less charged
with it restored the lungs to their normal condition. By degrees the
three friends recovered from their intoxication; but they were obliged
to sleep themselves sober over their oxygen as a drunkard does over his
wine.
When Michel learned his share of the responsibility of this incident,
he was not much disconcerted. This unexpected drunkenness broke the
monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said while under
its influence, but also quickly forgotten.
“And then,” added the merry Frenchman, “I am not sorry to have tasted a
little of this heady gas. Do you know, my friends, that a curious
establishment might be founded with rooms of oxygen, where people whose
system is weakened could for a few hours live a more active life. Fancy
parties where the room was saturated with this heroic fluid, theaters
where it should be kept at high pressure; what passion in the souls of
the actors and spectators! what fire, what enthusiasm! And if, instead
of an assembly only a whole people could be saturated, what activity in
its functions, what a supplement to life it would derive. From an
exhausted nation they might make a great and strong one, and I know
more than one state in old Europe which ought to put itself under the
regime of oxygen for the sake of its health!”
Michel spoke with so much animation that one might have fancied that
the tap was still too open. But a few words from Barbicane soon
shattered his enthusiasm.
“That is all very well, friend Michel,” said he, “but will you inform
us where these chickens came from which have mixed themselves up in our
concert?”
“Those chickens?”
“Yes.”
Indeed, half a dozen chickens and a fine cock were walking about,
flapping their wings and chattering.
“Ah, the awkward things!” exclaimed Michel. “The oxygen has made them
revolt.”
“But what do you want to do with these chickens?” asked Barbicane.
“To acclimatize them in the moon, by Jove!”
“Then why did you hide them?”
“A joke, my worthy president, a simple joke, which has proved a
miserable failure. I wanted to set them free on the lunar continent,
without saying anything. Oh, what would have been your amazement on
seeing these earthly-winged animals pecking in your lunar fields!”
“You rascal, you unmitigated rascal,” replied Barbicane, “you do not
want oxygen to mount to the head. You are always what we were under the
influence of the gas; you are always foolish!”
“Ah, who says that we were not wise then?” replied Michel Ardan.
After this philosophical reflection, the three friends set about
restoring the order of the projectile. Chickens and cock were
reinstated in their coop. But while proceeding with this operation,
Barbicane and his two companions had a most desired perception of a new
phenomenon. From the moment of leaving the earth, their own weight,
that of the projectile, and the objects it enclosed, had been subject
to an increasing diminution. If they could not prove this loss of the
projectile, a moment would arrive when it would be sensibly felt upon
themselves and the utensils and instruments they used.
It is needless to say that a scale would not show this loss; for the
weight destined to weight the object would have lost exactly as much as
the object itself; but a spring steelyard for example, the tension of
which was independent of the attraction, would have given a just
estimate of this loss.
We know that the attraction, otherwise called the weight, is in
proportion to the densities of the bodies, and inversely as the squares
of the distances. Hence this effect: If the earth had been alone in
space, if the other celestial bodies had been suddenly annihilated, the
projectile, according to Newton’s laws, would weigh less as it got
farther from the earth, but without ever losing its weight entirely,
for the terrestrial attraction would always have made itself felt, at
whatever distance.
But, in reality, a time must come when the projectile would no longer
be subject to the law of weight, after allowing for the other celestial
bodies whose effect could not be set down as zero. Indeed, the
projectile’s course was being traced between the earth and the moon. As
it distanced the earth, the terrestrial attraction diminished: but the
lunar attraction rose in proportion. There must come a point where
these two attractions would neutralize each other: the projectile would
possess weight no longer. If the moon’s and the earth’s densities had
been equal, this point would have been at an equal distance between the
two orbs. But taking the different densities into consideration, it was
easy to reckon that this point would be situated at 47/60ths of the
whole journey, _i.e._, at 78,514 leagues from the earth. At this point,
a body having no principle of speed or displacement in itself, would
remain immovable forever, being attracted equally by both orbs, and not
being drawn more toward one than toward the other.
Now if the projectile’s impulsive force had been correctly calculated,
it would attain this point without speed, having lost all trace of
weight, as well as all the objects within it. What would happen then?
Three hypotheses presented themselves.
1. Either it would retain a certain amount of motion, and pass the
point of equal attraction, and fall upon the moon by virtue of the
excess of the lunar attraction over the terrestrial.
2. Or, its speed failing, and unable to reach the point of equal
attraction, it would fall upon the moon by virtue of the excess of the
lunar attraction over the terrestrial.
3. Or, lastly, animated with sufficient speed to enable it to reach the
neutral point, but not sufficient to pass it, it would remain forever
suspended in that spot like the pretended tomb of Mahomet, between the
zenith and the nadir.
Such was their situation; and Barbicane clearly explained the
consequences to his traveling companions, which greatly interested
them. But how should they know when the projectile had reached this
neutral point situated at that distance, especially when neither
themselves, nor the objects enclosed in the projectile, would be any
longer subject to the laws of weight?
Up to this time, the travelers, while admitting that this action was
constantly decreasing, had not yet become sensible to its total
absence.
But that day, about eleven o’clock in the morning, Nicholl having
accidentally let a glass slip from his hand, the glass, instead of
falling, remained suspended in the air.
“Ah!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “that is rather an amusing piece of
natural philosophy.”
And immediately divers other objects, firearms and bottles, abandoned
to themselves, held themselves up as by enchantment. Diana too, placed
in space by Michel, reproduced, but without any trick, the wonderful
suspension practiced by Caston and Robert Houdin. Indeed the dog did
not seem to know that she was floating in air.
The three adventurous companions were surprised and stupefied, despite
their scientific reasonings. They felt themselves being carried into
the domain of wonders! they felt that weight was really wanting to
their bodies. If they stretched out their arms, they did not attempt to
fall. Their heads shook on their shoulders. Their feet no longer clung
to the floor of the projectile. They were like drunken men having no
stability in themselves.
Fancy has depicted men without reflection, others without shadow. But
here reality, by the neutralizations of attractive forces, produced men
in whom nothing had any weight, and who weighed nothing themselves.
Suddenly Michel, taking a spring, left the floor and remained suspended
in the air, like Murillo’s monk of the _Cusine des Anges_.
The two friends joined him instantly, and all three formed a miraculous
“Ascension” in the center of the projectile.
“Is it to be believed? is it probable? is it possible?” exclaimed
Michel; “and yet it is so. Ah! if Raphael had seen us thus, what an
‘Assumption’ he would have thrown upon canvas!”
“The ‘Assumption’ cannot last,” replied Barbicane. “If the projectile
passes the neutral point, the lunar attraction will draw us to the
moon.”
“Then our feet will be upon the roof,” replied Michel.
“No,” said Barbicane, “because the projectile’s center of gravity is
very low; it will only turn by degrees.”
“Then all our portables will be upset from top to bottom, that is a
fact.”
“Calm yourself, Michel,” replied Nicholl; “no upset is to be feared;
not a thing will move, for the projectile’s evolution will be
imperceptible.”
“Just so,” continued Barbicane; “and when it has passed the point of
equal attraction, its base, being the heavier, will draw it
perpendicularly to the moon; but, in order that this phenomenon should
take place, we must have passed the neutral line.”
“Pass the neutral line,” cried Michel; “then let us do as the sailors
do when they cross the equator.”
A slight side movement brought Michel back toward the padded side;
thence he took a bottle and glasses, placed them “in space” before his
companions, and, drinking merrily, they saluted the line with a triple
hurrah. The influence of these attractions scarcely lasted an hour; the
travelers felt themselves insensibly drawn toward the floor, and
Barbicane fancied that the conical end of the projectile was varying a
little from its normal direction toward the moon. By an inverse motion
the base was approaching first; the lunar attraction was prevailing
over the terrestrial; the fall toward the moon was beginning, almost
imperceptibly as yet, but by degrees the attractive force would become
stronger, the fall would be more decided, the projectile, drawn by its
base, would turn its cone to the earth, and fall with ever-increasing
speed on to the surface of the Selenite continent; their destination
would then be attained. Now nothing could prevent the success of their
enterprise, and Nicholl and Michel Ardan shared Barbicane’s joy.
Then they chatted of all the phenomena which had astonished them one
after the other, particularly the neutralization of the laws of weight.
Michel Ardan, always enthusiastic, drew conclusions which were purely
fanciful.
“Ah, my worthy friends,” he exclaimed, “what progress we should make if
on earth we could throw off some of that weight, some of that chain
which binds us to her; it would be the prisoner set at liberty; no more
fatigue of either arms or legs. Or, if it is true that in order to fly
on the earth’s surface, to keep oneself suspended in the air merely by
the play of the muscles, there requires a strength a hundred and fifty
times greater than that which we possess, a simple act of volition, a
caprice, would bear us into space, if attraction did not exist.”
“Just so,” said Nicholl, smiling; “if we could succeed in suppressing
weight as they suppress pain by anaesthesia, that would change the face
of modern society!”
“Yes,” cried Michel, full of his subject, “destroy weight, and no more
burdens!”
“Well said,” replied Barbicane; “but if nothing had any weight, nothing
would keep in its place, not even your hat on your head, worthy Michel;
nor your house, whose stones only adhere by weight; nor a boat, whose
stability on the waves is only caused by weight; not even the ocean,
whose waves would no longer be equalized by terrestrial attraction; and
lastly, not even the atmosphere, whose atoms, being no longer held in
their places, would disperse in space!”
“That is tiresome,” retorted Michel; “nothing like these matter-of-fact
people for bringing one back to the bare reality.”
“But console yourself, Michel,” continued Barbicane, “for if no orb
exists from whence all laws of weight are banished, you are at least
going to visit one where it is much less than on the earth.”
“The moon?”
“Yes, the moon, on whose surface objects weigh six times less than on
the earth, a phenomenon easy to prove.”
“And we shall feel it?” asked Michel.
“Evidently, as two hundred pounds will only weigh thirty pounds on the
surface of the moon.”
“And our muscular strength will not diminish?”
“Not at all; instead of jumping one yard high, you will rise eighteen
feet high.”
“But we shall be regular Herculeses in the moon!” exclaimed Michel.
“Yes,” replied Nicholl; “for if the height of the Selenites is in
proportion to the density of their globe, they will be scarcely a foot
high.”
“Lilliputians!” ejaculated Michel; “I shall play the part of Gulliver.
We are going to realize the fable of the giants. This is the advantage
of leaving one’s own planet and over-running the solar world.”
“One moment, Michel,” answered Barbicane; “if you wish to play the part
of Gulliver, only visit the inferior planets, such as Mercury, Venus,
or Mars, whose density is a little less than that of the earth; but do
not venture into the great planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune;
for there the order will be changed, and you will become Lilliputian.”
“And in the sun?”
“In the sun, if its density is thirteen hundred and twenty-four
thousand times greater, and the attraction is twenty-seven times
greater than on the surface of our globe, keeping everything in
proportion, the inhabitants ought to be at least two hundred feet
high.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Michel; “I should be nothing more than a pigmy, a
shrimp!”
“Gulliver with the giants,” said Nicholl.
“Just so,” replied Barbicane.
“And it would not be quite useless to carry some pieces of artillery to
defend oneself.”
“Good,” replied Nicholl; “your projectiles would have no effect on the
sun; they would fall back upon the earth after some minutes.”
“That is a strong remark.”
“It is certain,” replied Barbicane; “the attraction is so great on this
enormous orb, that an object weighing 70,000 pounds on the earth would
weigh but 1,920 pounds on the surface of the sun. If you were to fall
upon it you would weigh—let me see—about 5,000 pounds, a weight which
you would never be able to raise again.”
“The devil!” said Michel; “one would want a portable crane. However, we
will be satisfied with the moon for the present; there at least we
shall cut a great figure. We will see about the sun by and by.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DEVIATION
Barbicane had now no fear of the issue of the journey, at least as far
as the projectile’s impulsive force was concerned; its own speed would
carry it beyond the neutral line; it would certainly not return to
earth; it would certainly not remain motionless on the line of
attraction. One single hypothesis remained to be realized, the arrival
of the projectile at its destination by the action of the lunar
attraction.
It was in reality a fall of 8,296 leagues on an orb, it is true, where
weight could only be reckoned at one sixth of terrestrial weight; a
formidable fall, nevertheless, and one against which every precaution
must be taken without delay.
These precautions were of two sorts, some to deaden the shock when the
projectile should touch the lunar soil, others to delay the fall, and
consequently make it less violent.
To deaden the shock, it was a pity that Barbicane was no longer able to
employ the means which had so ably weakened the shock at departure,
that is to say, by water used as springs and the partition breaks.
The partitions still existed, but water failed, for they could not use
their reserve, which was precious, in case during the first days the
liquid element should be found wanting on lunar soil.
And indeed this reserve would have been quite insufficient for a
spring. The layer of water stored in the projectile at the time of
starting upon their journey occupied no less than three feet in depth,
and spread over a surface of not less than fifty-four square feet.
Besides, the cistern did not contain one-fifth part of it; they must
therefore give up this efficient means of deadening the shock of
arrival. Happily, Barbicane, not content with employing water, had
furnished the movable disc with strong spring plugs, destined to lessen
the shock against the base after the breaking of the horizontal
partitions. These plugs still existed; they had only to readjust them
and replace the movable disc; every piece, easy to handle, as their
weight was now scarcely felt, was quickly mounted.
The different pieces were fitted without trouble, it being only a
matter of bolts and screws; tools were not wanting, and soon the
reinstated disc lay on steel plugs, like a table on its legs. One
inconvenience resulted from the replacing of the disc, the lower window
was blocked up; thus it was impossible for the travelers to observe the
moon from that opening while they were being precipitated
perpendicularly upon her; but they were obliged to give it up; even by
the side openings they could still see vast lunar regions, as an
aeronaut sees the earth from his car.
This replacing of the disc was at least an hour’s work. It was past
twelve when all preparations were finished. Barbicane took fresh
observations on the inclination of the projectile, but to his annoyance
it had not turned over sufficiently for its fall; it seemed to take a
curve parallel to the lunar disc. The orb of night shone splendidly
into space, while opposite, the orb of day blazed with fire.
Their situation began to make them uneasy.
“Are we reaching our destination?” said Nicholl.
“Let us act as if we were about reaching it,” replied Barbicane.
“You are sceptical,” retorted Michel Ardan. “We shall arrive, and that,
too, quicker than we like.”
This answer brought Barbicane back to his preparations, and he occupied
himself with placing the contrivances intended to break their descent.
We may remember the scene of the meeting held at Tampa Town, in
Florida, when Captain Nicholl came forward as Barbicane’s enemy and
Michel Ardan’s adversary. To Captain Nicholl’s maintaining that the
projectile would smash like glass, Michel replied that he would break
their fall by means of rockets properly placed.
Thus, powerful fireworks, taking their starting-point from the base and
bursting outside, could, by producing a recoil, check to a certain
degree the projectile’s speed. These rockets were to burn in space, it
is true; but oxygen would not fail them, for they could supply
themselves with it, like the lunar volcanoes, the burning of which has
never yet been stopped by the want of atmosphere round the moon.
Barbicane had accordingly supplied himself with these fireworks,
enclosed in little steel guns, which could be screwed on to the base of
the projectile. Inside, these guns were flush with the bottom; outside,
they protruded about eighteen inches. There were twenty of them. An
opening left in the disc allowed them to light the match with which
each was provided. All the effect was felt outside. The burning mixture
had already been rammed into each gun. They had, then, nothing to do
but raise the metallic buffers fixed in the base, and replace them by
the guns, which fitted closely in their places.
This new work was finished about three o’clock, and after taking all
these precautions there remained but to wait. But the projectile was
perceptibly nearing the moon, and evidently succumbed to her influence
to a certain degree; though its own velocity also drew it in an oblique
direction. From these conflicting influences resulted a line which
might become a tangent. But it was certain that the projectile would
not fall directly on the moon; for its lower part, by reason of its
weight, ought to be turned toward her.
Barbicane’s uneasiness increased as he saw his projectile resist the
influence of gravitation. The Unknown was opening before him, the
Unknown in interplanetary space. The man of science thought he had
foreseen the only three hypotheses possible—the return to the earth,
the return to the moon, or stagnation on the neutral line; and here a
fourth hypothesis, big with all the terrors of the Infinite, surged up
inopportunely. To face it without flinching, one must be a resolute
savant like Barbicane, a phlegmatic being like Nicholl, or an audacious
adventurer like Michel Ardan.
Conversation was started upon this subject. Other men would have
considered the question from a practical point of view; they would have
asked themselves whither their projectile carriage was carrying them.
Not so with these; they sought for the cause which produced this
effect.
“So we have become diverted from our route,” said Michel; “but why?”
“I very much fear,” answered Nicholl, “that, in spite of all
precautions taken, the Columbiad was not fairly pointed. An error,
however small, would be enough to throw us out of the moon’s
attraction.”
“Then they must have aimed badly?” asked Michel.
“I do not think so,” replied Barbicane. “The perpendicularity of the
gun was exact, its direction to the zenith of the spot incontestible;
and the moon passing to the zenith of the spot, we ought to reach it at
the full. There is another reason, but it escapes me.”
“Are we not arriving too late?” asked Nicholl.
“Too late?” said Barbicane.
“Yes,” continued Nicholl. “The Cambridge Observatory’s note says that
the transit ought to be accomplished in ninety-seven hours thirteen
minutes and twenty seconds; which means to say, that _sooner_ the moon
will _not_ be at the point indicated, and _later_ it will have passed
it.”
“True,” replied Barbicane. “But we started the 1st of December, at
thirteen minutes and twenty-five seconds to eleven at night; and we
ought to arrive on the 5th at midnight, at the exact moment when the
moon would be full; and we are now at the 5th of December. It is now
half-past three in the evening; half-past eight ought to see us at the
end of our journey. Why do we not arrive?”
“Might it not be an excess of speed?” answered Nicholl; “for we know
now that its initial velocity was greater than they supposed.”
“No! a hundred times, no!” replied Barbicane. “An excess of speed, if
the direction of the projectile had been right, would not have
prevented us reaching the moon. No, there has been a deviation. We have
been turned out of our course.”
“By whom? by what?” asked Nicholl.
“I cannot say,” replied Barbicane.
“Very well, then, Barbicane,” said Michel, “do you wish to know my
opinion on the subject of finding out this deviation?”
“Speak.”
“I would not give half a dollar to know it. That we have deviated is a
fact. Where we are going matters little; we shall soon see. Since we
are being borne along in space we shall end by falling into some center
of attraction or other.”
Michel Ardan’s indifference did not content Barbicane. Not that he was
uneasy about the future, but he wanted to know at any cost _why_ his
projectile had deviated.
But the projectile continued its course sideways to the moon, and with
it the mass of things thrown out. Barbicane could even prove, by the
elevations which served as landmarks upon the moon, which was only two
thousand leagues distant, that its speed was becoming uniform—fresh
proof that there was no fall. Its impulsive force still prevailed over
the lunar attraction, but the projectile’s course was certainly
bringing it nearer to the moon, and they might hope that at a nearer
point the weight, predominating, would cause a decided fall.
The three friends, having nothing better to do, continued their
observations; but they could not yet determine the topographical
position of the satellite; every relief was leveled under the
reflection of the solar rays.
They watched thus through the side windows until eight o’clock at
night. The moon had grown so large in their eyes that it filled half of
the firmament. The sun on one side, and the orb of night on the other,
flooded the projectile with light.
At that moment Barbicane thought he could estimate the distance which
separated them from their aim at no more than 700 leagues. The speed of
the projectile seemed to him to be more than 200 yards, or about 170
leagues a second. Under the centripetal force, the base of the
projectile tended toward the moon; but the centrifugal still prevailed;
and it was probable that its rectilineal course would be changed to a
curve of some sort, the nature of which they could not at present
determine.
Barbicane was still seeking the solution of his insoluble problem.
Hours passed without any result. The projectile was evidently nearing
the moon, but it was also evident that it would never reach her. As to
the nearest distance at which it would pass her, that must be the
result of two forces, attraction and repulsion, affecting its motion.
“I ask but one thing,” said Michel; “that we may pass near enough to
penetrate her secrets.”
“Cursed be the thing that has caused our projectile to deviate from its
course,” cried Nicholl.
And, as if a light had suddenly broken in upon his mind, Barbicane
answered, “Then cursed be the meteor which crossed our path.”
“What?” said Michel Ardan.
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicholl.
“I mean,” said Barbicane in a decided tone, “I mean that our deviation
is owing solely to our meeting with this erring body.”
“But it did not even brush us as it passed,” said Michel.
“What does that matter? Its mass, compared to that of our projectile,
was enormous, and its attraction was enough to influence our course.”
“So little?” cried Nicholl.
“Yes, Nicholl; but however little it might be,” replied Barbicane, “in
a distance of 84,000 leagues, it wanted no more to make us miss the
moon.”
CHAPTER X.
THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON
Barbicane had evidently hit upon the only plausible reason of this
deviation. However slight it might have been, it had sufficed to modify
the course of the projectile. It was a fatality. The bold attempt had
miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance; and unless by some exceptional
event, they could now never reach the moon’s disc.
Would they pass near enough to be able to solve certain physical and
geological questions until then insoluble? This was the question, and
the only one, which occupied the minds of these bold travelers. As to
the fate in store for themselves, they did not even dream of it.
But what would become of them amid these infinite solitudes, these who
would soon want air? A few more days, and they would fall stifled in
this wandering projectile. But some days to these intrepid fellows was
a century; and they devoted all their time to observe that moon which
they no longer hoped to reach.
The distance which had then separated the projectile from the satellite
was estimated at about two hundred leagues. Under these conditions, as
regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travelers were
farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of earth with their
powerful telescopes.
Indeed, we know that the instrument mounted by Lord Rosse at
Parsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon to within an
apparent distance of sixteen leagues. And more than that, with the
powerful one set up at Long’s Peak, the orb of night, magnified 48,000
times, is brought to within less than two leagues, and objects having a
diameter of thirty feet are seen very distinctly. So that, at this
distance, the topographical details of the moon, observed without
glasses, could not be determined with precision. The eye caught the
vast outline of those immense depressions inappropriately called
“seas,” but they could not recognize their nature. The prominence of
the mountains disappeared under the splendid irradiation produced by
the reflection of the solar rays. The eye, dazzled as if it was leaning
over a bath of molten silver, turned from it involuntarily; but the
oblong form of the orb was quite clear. It appeared like a gigantic
egg, with the small end turned toward the earth. Indeed the moon,
liquid and pliable in the first days of its formation, was originally a
perfect sphere; but being soon drawn within the attraction of the
earth, it became elongated under the influence of gravitation. In
becoming a satellite, she lost her native purity of form; her center of
gravity was in advance of the center of her figure; and from this fact
some savants draw the conclusion that the air and water had taken
refuge on the opposite surface of the moon, which is never seen from
the earth. This alteration in the primitive form of the satellite was
only perceptible for a few moments. The distance of the projectile from
the moon diminished very rapidly under its speed, though that was much
less than its initial velocity—but eight or nine times greater than
that which propels our express trains. The oblique course of the
projectile, from its very obliquity, gave Michel Ardan some hopes of
striking the lunar disc at some point or other. He could not think that
they would never reach it. No! he could not believe it; and this
opinion he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a better judge,
always answered him with merciless logic.
“No, Michel, no! We can only reach the moon by a fall, and we are not
falling. The centripetal force keeps us under the moon’s influence, but
the centrifugal force draws us irresistibly away from it.”
This was said in a tone which quenched Michel Ardan’s last hope.
The portion of the moon which the projectile was nearing was the
northern hemisphere, that which the selenographic maps place below; for
these maps are generally drawn after the outline given by the glasses,
and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the _Mappa
Selenographica_ of Boeer and Moedler which Barbicane consulted. This
northern hemisphere presented vast plains, dotted with isolated
mountains.
At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment the travelers
should have alighted upon it, if the mischievous meteor had not
diverted their course. The orb was exactly in the condition determined
by the Cambridge Observatory. It was mathematically at its perigee, and
at the zenith of the twenty-eighth parallel. An observer placed at the
bottom of the enormous Columbiad, pointed perpendicularly to the
horizon, would have framed the moon in the mouth of the gun. A straight
line drawn through the axis of the piece would have passed through the
center of the orb of night. It is needless to say, that during the
night of the 5th-6th of December, the travelers took not an instant’s
rest. Could they close their eyes when so near this new world? No! All
their feelings were concentrated in one single thought:—See!
Representatives of the earth, of humanity, past and present, all
centered in them! It is through their eyes that the human race look at
these lunar regions, and penetrate the secrets of their satellite! A
strange emotion filled their hearts as they went from one window to the
other. Their observations, reproduced by Barbicane, were rigidly
determined. To take them, they had glasses; to correct them, maps.
As regards the optical instruments at their disposal, they had
excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this journey. They
possessed magnifying powers of 100. They would thus have brought the
moon to within a distance (apparent) of less than 2,000 leagues from
the earth. But then, at a distance which for three hours in the morning
did not exceed sixty-five miles, and in a medium free from all
atmospheric disturbances, these instruments could reduce the lunar
surface to within less than 1,500 yards!
CHAPTER XI.
FANCY AND REALITY
“Have you ever seen the moon?” asked a professor, ironically, of one of
his pupils.
“No, sir!” replied the pupil, still more ironically, “but I must say I
have heard it spoken of.”
In one sense, the pupil’s witty answer might be given by a large
majority of sublunary beings. How many people have heard speak of the
moon who have never seen it—at least through a glass or a telescope!
How many have never examined the map of their satellite!
In looking at a selenographic map, one peculiarity strikes us. Contrary
to the arrangement followed for that of the Earth and Mars, the
continents occupy more particularly the southern hemisphere of the
lunar globe. These continents do not show such decided, clear, and
regular boundary lines as South America, Africa, and the Indian
peninsula. Their angular, capricious, and deeply indented coasts are
rich in gulfs and peninsulas. They remind one of the confusion in the
islands of the Sound, where the land is excessively indented. If
navigation ever existed on the surface of the moon, it must have been
wonderfully difficult and dangerous; and we may well pity the Selenite
sailors and hydrographers; the former, when they came upon these
perilous coasts, the latter when they took the soundings of its stormy
banks.
We may also notice that, on the lunar sphere, the south pole is much
more continental than the north pole. On the latter, there is but one
slight strip of land separated from other continents by vast seas.
Toward the south, continents clothe almost the whole of the hemisphere.
It is even possible that the Selenites have already planted the flag on
one of their poles, while Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont, d’Urville, and
Lambert have never yet been able to attain that unknown point of the
terrestrial globe.
As to islands, they are numerous on the surface of the moon. Nearly all
oblong or circular, and as if traced with the compass, they seem to
form one vast archipelago, equal to that charming group lying between
Greece and Asia Minor, and which mythology in ancient times adorned
with most graceful legends. Involuntarily the names of Naxos, Tenedos,
and Carpathos, rise before the mind, and we seek vainly for Ulysses’
vessel or the “clipper” of the Argonauts. So at least it was in Michel
Ardan’s eyes. To him it was a Grecian archipelago that he saw on the
map. To the eyes of his matter-of-fact companions, the aspect of these
coasts recalled rather the parceled-out land of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, and where the Frenchman discovered traces of the heroes of
fable, these Americans were marking the most favorable points for the
establishment of stores in the interests of lunar commerce and
industry.
After wandering over these vast continents, the eye is attracted by the
still greater seas. Not only their formation, but their situation and
aspect remind one of the terrestrial oceans; but again, as on earth,
these seas occupy the greater portion of the globe. But in point of
fact, these are not liquid spaces, but plains, the nature of which the
travelers hoped soon to determine. Astronomers, we must allow, have
graced these pretended seas with at least odd names, which science has
respected up to the present time. Michel Ardan was right when he
compared this map to a “Tendre card,” got up by a Scudary or a Cyrano
de Bergerac. “Only,” said he, “it is no longer the sentimental card of
the seventeenth century, it is the card of life, very neatly divided
into two parts, one feminine, the other masculine; the right hemisphere
for woman, the left for man.”
In speaking thus, Michel made his prosaic companions shrug their
shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked upon the lunar map from a very
different point of view to that of their fantastic friend.
Nevertheless, their fantastic friend was a little in the right. Judge
for yourselves.
In the left hemisphere stretches the “Sea of Clouds,” where human
reason is so often shipwrecked. Not far off lies the “Sea of Rains,”
fed by all the fever of existence. Near this is the “Sea of Storms,”
where man is ever fighting against his passions, which too often gain
the victory. Then, worn out by deceit, treasons, infidelity, and the
whole body of terrestrial misery, what does he find at the end of his
career? that vast “Sea of Humors,” barely softened by some drops of the
waters from the “Gulf of Dew!” Clouds, rain, storms, and humors—does
the life of man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up in
these four words?
The right hemisphere, “dedicated to the ladies,” encloses smaller seas,
whose significant names contain every incident of a feminine existence.
There is the “Sea of Serenity,” over which the young girl bends; “The
Lake of Dreams,” reflecting a joyous future; “The Sea of Nectar,” with
its waves of tenderness and breezes of love; “The Sea of Fruitfulness;”
“The Sea of Crises;” then the “Sea of Vapors,” whose dimensions are
perhaps a little too confined; and lastly, that vast “Sea of
Tranquillity,” in which every false passion, every useless dream, every
unsatisfied desire is at length absorbed, and whose waves emerge
peacefully into the “Lake of Death!”
What a strange succession of names! What a singular division of the
moon’s two hemispheres, joined to one another like man and woman, and
forming that sphere of life carried into space! And was not the
fantastic Michel right in thus interpreting the fancies of the ancient
astronomers? But while his imagination thus roved over “the seas,” his
grave companions were considering things more geographically. They were
learning this new world by heart. They were measuring angles and
diameters.
CHAPTER XII.
OROGRAPHIC DETAILS
The course taken by the projectile, as we have before remarked, was
bearing it toward the moon’s northern hemisphere. The travelers were
far from the central point which they would have struck, had their
course not been subject to an irremediable deviation. It was past
midnight; and Barbicane then estimated the distance at seven hundred
and fifty miles, which was a little greater than the length of the
lunar radius, and which would diminish as it advanced nearer to the
North Pole. The projectile was then not at the altitude of the equator;
but across the tenth parallel, and from that latitude, carefully taken
on the map to the pole, Barbicane and his two companions were able to
observe the moon under the most favorable conditions. Indeed, by means
of glasses, the above-named distance was reduced to little more than
fourteen miles. The telescope of the Rocky Mountains brought the moon
much nearer; but the terrestrial atmosphere singularly lessened its
power. Thus Barbicane, posted in his projectile, with the glasses to
his eyes, could seize upon details which were almost imperceptible to
earthly observers.
“My friends,” said the president, in a serious voice, “I do not know
whither we are going; I do not know if we shall ever see the
terrestrial globe again. Nevertheless, let us proceed as if our work
would one day by useful to our fellow-men. Let us keep our minds free
from every other consideration. We are astronomers; and this projectile
is a room in the Cambridge University, carried into space. Let us make
our observations!”
This said, work was begun with great exactness; and they faithfully
reproduced the different aspects of the moon, at the different
distances which the projectile reached.
At the time that the projectile was as high as the tenth parallel,
north latitude, it seemed rigidly to follow the twentieth degree, east
longitude. We must here make one important remark with regard to the
map by which they were taking observations. In the selenographical maps
where, on account of the reversing of the objects by the glasses, the
south is above and the north below, it would seem natural that, on
account of that inversion, the east should be to the left hand, and the
west to the right. But it is not so. If the map were turned upside
down, showing the moon as we see her, the east would be to the left,
and the west to the right, contrary to that which exists on terrestrial
maps. The following is the reason of this anomaly. Observers in the
northern hemisphere (say in Europe) see the moon in the south—according
to them. When they take observations, they turn their backs to the
north, the reverse position to that which they occupy when they study a
terrestrial map. As they turn their backs to the north, the east is on
their left, and the west to their right. To observers in the southern
hemisphere (Patagonia for example), the moon’s west would be quite to
their left, and the east to their right, as the south is behind them.
Such is the reason of the apparent reversing of these two cardinal
points, and we must bear it in mind in order to be able to follow
President Barbicane’s observations.
With the help of Boeer and Moedler’s _Mappa Selenographica_, the
travelers were able at once to recognize that portion of the disc
enclosed within the field of their glasses.
“What are we looking at, at this moment?” asked Michel.
“At the northern part of the ‘Sea of Clouds,’” answered Barbicane. “We
are too far off to recognize its nature. Are these plains composed of
arid sand, as the first astronomer maintained? Or are they nothing but
immense forests, according to M. Warren de la Rue’s opinion, who gives
the moon an atmosphere, though a very low and a very dense one? That we
shall know by and by. We must affirm nothing until we are in a position
to do so.”
This “Sea of Clouds” is rather doubtfully marked out upon the maps. It
is supposed that these vast plains are strewn with blocks of lava from
the neighboring volcanoes on its right, Ptolemy, Purbach, Arzachel. But
the projectile was advancing, and sensibly nearing it. Soon there
appeared the heights which bound this sea at this northern limit.
Before them rose a mountain radiant with beauty, the top of which
seemed lost in an eruption of solar rays.
“That is—?” asked Michel.
“Copernicus,” replied Barbicane.
“Let us see Copernicus.”
This mount, situated in 9° north latitude and 20° east longitude, rose
to a height of 10,600 feet above the surface of the moon. It is quite
visible from the earth; and astronomers can study it with ease,
particularly during the phase between the last quarter and the new
moon, because then the shadows are thrown lengthways from east to west,
allowing them to measure the heights.
This Copernicus forms the most important of the radiating system,
situated in the southern hemisphere, according to Tycho Brahé. It rises
isolated like a gigantic lighthouse on that portion of the “Sea of
Clouds,” which is bounded by the “Sea of Tempests,” thus lighting by
its splendid rays two oceans at a time. It was a sight without an
equal, those long luminous trains, so dazzling in the full moon, and
which, passing the boundary chain on the north, extends to the “Sea of
Rains.” At one o’clock of the terrestrial morning, the projectile, like
a balloon borne into space, overlooked the top of this superb mount.
Barbicane could recognize perfectly its chief features. Copernicus is
comprised in the series of ringed mountains of the first order, in the
division of great circles. Like Kepler and Aristarchus, which overlook
the “Ocean of Tempests,” sometimes it appeared like a brilliant point
through the cloudy light, and was taken for a volcano in activity. But
it is only an extinct one—like all on that side of the moon. Its
circumference showed a diameter of about twenty-two leagues. The
glasses discovered traces of stratification produced by successive
eruptions, and the neighborhood was strewn with volcanic remains which
still choked some of the craters.
“There exist,” said Barbicane, “several kinds of circles on the surface
of the moon, and it is easy to see that Copernicus belongs to the
radiating class. If we were nearer, we should see the cones bristling
on the inside, which in former times were so many fiery mouths. A
curious arrangement, and one without an exception on the lunar disc, is
that the interior surface of these circles is the reverse of the
exterior, and contrary to the form taken by terrestrial craters. It
follows, then, that the general curve of the bottom of these circles
gives a sphere of a smaller diameter than that of the moon.”
“And why this peculiar disposition?” asked Nicholl.
“We do not know,” replied Barbicane.
“What splendid radiation!” said Michel. “One could hardly see a finer
spectacle, I think.”
“What would you say, then,” replied Barbicane, “if chance should bear
us toward the southern hemisphere?”
“Well, I should say that it was still more beautiful,” retorted Michel
Ardan.
At this moment the projectile hung perpendicularly over the circle. The
circumference of Copernicus formed almost a perfect circle, and its
steep escarpments were clearly defined. They could even distinguish a
second ringed enclosure. Around spread a grayish plain, of a wild
aspect, on which every relief was marked in yellow. At the bottom of
the circle, as if enclosed in a jewel case, sparkled for one instant
two or three eruptive cones, like enormous dazzling gems. Toward the
north the escarpments were lowered by a depression which would probably
have given access to the interior of the crater.
In passing over the surrounding plains, Barbicane noticed a great
number of less important mountains; and among others a little ringed
one called Guy Lussac, the breadth of which measured twelve miles.
Toward the south, the plain was very flat, without one elevation,
without one projection. Toward the north, on the contrary, till where
it was bounded by the “Sea of Storms,” it resembled a liquid surface
agitated by a storm, of which the hills and hollows formed a succession
of waves suddenly congealed. Over the whole of this, and in all
directions, lay the luminous lines, all converging to the summit of
Copernicus.
The travelers discussed the origin of these strange rays; but they
could not determine their nature any more than terrestrial observers.
“But why,” said Nicholl, “should not these rays be simply spurs of
mountains which reflect more vividly the light of the sun?”
“No,” replied Barbicane; “if it was so, under certain conditions of the
moon, these ridges would cast shadows, and they do not cast any.”
And indeed, these rays only appeared when the orb of day was in
opposition to the moon, and disappeared as soon as its rays became
oblique.
“But how have they endeavored to explain these lines of light?” asked
Michel; “for I cannot believe that savants would ever be stranded for
want of an explanation.”
“Yes,” replied Barbicane; “Herschel has put forward an opinion, but he
did not venture to affirm it.”
“Never mind. What was the opinion?”
“He thought that these rays might be streams of cooled lava which shone
when the sun beat straight upon them. It may be so; but nothing can be
less certain. Besides, if we pass nearer to Tycho, we shall be in a
better position to find out the cause of this radiation.”
“Do you know, my friends, what that plain, seen from the height we are
at, resembles?” said Michel.
“No,” replied Nicholl.
“Very well; with all those pieces of lava lengthened like rockets, it
resembles an immense game of spelikans thrown pellmell. There wants but
the hook to pull them out one by one.”
“Do be serious,” said Barbicane.
“Well, let us be serious,” replied Michel quietly; “and instead of
spelikans, let us put bones. This plain, would then be nothing but an
immense cemetery, on which would repose the mortal remains of thousands
of extinct generations. Do you prefer that high-flown comparison?”
“One is as good as the other,” retorted Barbicane.
“My word, you are difficult to please,” answered Michel.
“My worthy friend,” continued the matter-of-fact Barbicane, “it matters
but little what it _resembles_, when we do not know what it _is_.”
“Well answered,” exclaimed Michel. “That will teach me to reason with
savants.”
But the projectile continued to advance with almost uniform speed
around the lunar disc. The travelers, we may easily imagine, did not
dream of taking a moment’s rest. Every minute changed the landscape
which fled from beneath their gaze. About half past one o’clock in the
morning, they caught a glimpse of the tops of another mountain.
Barbicane, consulting his map, recognized Eratosthenes.
It was a ringed mountain nine thousand feet high, and one of those
circles so numerous on this satellite. With regard to this, Barbicane
related Kepler’s singular opinion on the formation of circles.
According to that celebrated mathematician, these crater-like cavities
had been dug by the hand of man.
“For what purpose?” asked Nicholl.
“For a very natural one,” replied Barbicane. “The Selenites might have
undertaken these immense works and dug these enormous holes for a
refuge and shield from the solar rays which beat upon them during
fifteen consecutive days.”
“The Selenites are not fools,” said Michel.
“A singular idea,” replied Nicholl; “but it is probable that Kepler did
not know the true dimensions of these circles, for the digging of them
would have been the work of giants quite impossible for the Selenites.”
“Why? if weight on the moon’s surface is six times less than on the
earth?” said Michel.
“But if the Selenites are six times smaller?” retorted Nicholl.
“And if there are _no_ Selenites?” added Barbicane.
This put an end to the discussion.
Soon Eratosthenes disappeared under the horizon without the projectile
being sufficiently near to allow close observation. This mountain
separated the Apennines from the Carpathians. In the lunar orography
they have discerned some chains of mountains, which are chiefly
distributed over the northern hemisphere. Some, however, occupy certain
portions of the southern hemisphere also.
About two o’clock in the morning Barbicane found that they were above
the twentieth lunar parallel. The distance of the projectile from the
moon was not more than six hundred miles. Barbicane, now perceiving
that the projectile was steadily approaching the lunar disc, did not
despair; if not of reaching her, at least of discovering the secrets of
her configuration.
CHAPTER XIII.
LUNAR LANDSCAPES
At half-past two in the morning, the projectile was over the thirteenth
lunar parallel and at the effective distance of five hundred miles,
reduced by the glasses to five. It still seemed impossible, however,
that it could ever touch any part of the disc. Its motive speed,
comparatively so moderate, was inexplicable to President Barbicane. At
that distance from the moon it must have been considerable, to enable
it to bear up against her attraction. Here was a phenomenon the cause
of which escaped them again. Besides, time failed them to investigate
the cause. All lunar relief was defiling under the eyes of the
travelers, and they would not lose a single detail.
Under the glasses the disc appeared at the distance of five miles. What
would an aeronaut, borne to this distance from the earth, distinguish
on its surface? We cannot say, since the greatest ascension has not
been more than 25,000 feet.
This, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and his
companions saw at this height. Large patches of different colors
appeared on the disc. Selenographers are not agreed upon the nature of
these colors. There are several, and rather vividly marked. Julius
Schmidt pretends that, if the terrestrial oceans were dried up, a
Selenite observer could not distinguish on the globe a greater
diversity of shades between the oceans and the continental plains than
those on the moon present to a terrestrial observer. According to him,
the color common to the vast plains known by the name of “seas” is a
dark gray mixed with green and brown. Some of the large craters present
the same appearance. Barbicane knew this opinion of the German
selenographer, an opinion shared by Boeer and Moedler. Observation has
proved that right was on their side, and not on that of some
astronomers who admit the existence of only gray on the moon’s surface.
In some parts green was very distinct, such as springs, according to
Julius Schmidt, from the seas of “Serenity and Humors.” Barbicane also
noticed large craters, without any interior cones, which shed a bluish
tint similar to the reflection of a sheet of steel freshly polished.
These colors belonged really to the lunar disc, and did not result, as
some astronomers say, either from the imperfection in the objective of
the glasses or from the interposition of the terrestrial atmosphere.
Not a doubt existed in Barbicane’s mind with regard to it, as he
observed it through space, and so could not commit any optical error.
He considered the establishment of this fact as an acquisition to
science. Now, were these shades of green, belonging to tropical
vegetation, kept up by a low dense atmosphere? He could not yet say.
Farther on, he noticed a reddish tint, quite defined. The same shade
had before been observed at the bottom of an isolated enclosure, known
by the name of Lichtenburg’s circle, which is situated near the
Hercynian mountains, on the borders of the moon; but they could not
tell the nature of it.
They were not more fortunate with regard to another peculiarity of the
disc, for they could not decide upon the cause of it.
Michel Ardan was watching near the president, when he noticed long
white lines, vividly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun. It was a
succession of luminous furrows, very different from the radiation of
Copernicus not long before; they ran parallel with each other.
Michel, with his usual readiness, hastened to exclaim:
“Look there! cultivated fields!”
“Cultivated fields!” replied Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders.
“Plowed, at all events,” retorted Michel Ardan; “but what laborers
those Selenites must be, and what giant oxen they must harness to their
plow to cut such furrows!”
“They are not furrows,” said Barbicane; “they are _rifts_.”
“Rifts? stuff!” replied Michel mildly; “but what do you mean by ‘rifts’
in the scientific world?”
Barbicane immediately enlightened his companion as to what he knew
about lunar rifts. He knew that they were a kind of furrow found on
every part of the disc which was not mountainous; that these furrows,
generally isolated, measured from 400 to 500 leagues in length; that
their breadth varied from 1,000 to 1,500 yards, and that their borders
were strictly parallel; but he knew nothing more either of their
formation or their nature.
Barbicane, through his glasses, observed these rifts with great
attention. He noticed that their borders were formed of steep
declivities; they were long parallel ramparts, and with some small
amount of imagination he might have admitted the existence of long
lines of fortifications, raised by Selenite engineers. Of these
different rifts some were perfectly straight, as if cut by a line;
others were slightly curved, though still keeping their borders
parallel; some crossed each other, some cut through craters; here they
wound through ordinary cavities, such as Posidonius or Petavius; there
they wound through the seas, such as the “Sea of Serenity.”
These natural accidents naturally excited the imaginations of these
terrestrial astronomers. The first observations had not discovered
these rifts. Neither Hévelius, Cassin, La Hire, nor Herschel seemed to
have known them. It was Schroeter who in 1789 first drew attention to
them. Others followed who studied them, as Pastorff, Gruithuysen,
Boeer, and Moedler. At this time their number amounts to seventy; but,
if they have been counted, their nature has not yet been determined;
they are certainly _not_ fortifications, any more than they are the
ancient beds of dried-up rivers; for, on one side, the waters, so
slight on the moon’s surface, could never have worn such drains for
themselves; and, on the other, they often cross craters of great
elevation.
We must, however, allow that Michel Ardan had “an idea,” and that,
without knowing it, he coincided in that respect with Julius Schmidt.
“Why,” said he, “should not these unaccountable appearances be simply
phenomena of vegetation?”
“What do you mean?” asked Barbicane quickly.
“Do not excite yourself, my worthy president,” replied Michel; “might
it not be possible that the dark lines forming that bastion were rows
of trees regularly placed?”
“You stick to your vegetation, then?” said Barbicane.
“I like,” retorted Michel Ardan, “to explain what you savants cannot
explain; at least my hypotheses has the advantage of indicating why
these rifts disappear, or seem to disappear, at certain seasons.”
“And for what reason?”
“For the reason that the trees become invisible when they lose their
leaves, and visible again when they regain them.”
“Your explanation is ingenious, my dear companion,” replied Barbicane,
“but inadmissible.”
“Why?”
“Because, so to speak, there are no seasons on the moon’s surface, and
that, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation of which you speak
cannot occur.”
Indeed, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun at an
almost equal height in every latitude. Above the equatorial regions the
radiant orb almost invariably occupies the zenith, and does not pass
the limits of the horizon in the polar regions; thus, according to each
region, there reigns a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or autumn, as
in the planet Jupiter, whose axis is but little inclined upon its
orbit.
What origin do they attribute to these rifts? That is a question
difficult to solve. They are certainly anterior to the formation of
craters and circles, for several have introduced themselves by breaking
through their circular ramparts. Thus it may be that, contemporary with
the later geological epochs, they are due to the expansion of natural
forces.
But the projectile had now attained the fortieth degree of lunar
latitude, at a distance not exceeding 40 miles. Through the glasses
objects appeared to be only four miles distant.
At this point, under their feet, rose Mount Helicon, 1,520 feet high,
and round about the left rose moderate elevations, enclosing a small
portion of the “Sea of Rains,” under the name of the Gulf of Iris. The
terrestrial atmosphere would have to be one hundred and seventy times
more transparent than it is, to allow astronomers to make perfect
observations on the moon’s surface; but in the void in which the
projectile floated no fluid interposed itself between the eye of the
observer and the object observed. And more, Barbicane found himself
carried to a greater distance than the most powerful telescopes had
ever done before, either that of Lord Rosse or that of the Rocky
Mountains. He was, therefore, under extremely favorable conditions for
solving that great question of the habitability of the moon; but the
solution still escaped him; he could distinguish nothing but desert
beds, immense plains, and toward the north, arid mountains. Not a work
betrayed the hand of man; not a ruin marked his course; not a group of
animals was to be seen indicating life, even in an inferior degree. In
no part was there life, in no part was there an appearance of
vegetation. Of the three kingdoms which share the terrestrial globe
between them, one alone was represented on the lunar and that the
mineral.
“Ah, indeed!” said Michel Ardan, a little out of countenance; “then you
see no one?”
“No,” answered Nicholl; “up to this time, not a man, not an animal, not
a tree! After all, whether the atmosphere has taken refuge at the
bottom of cavities, in the midst of the circles, or even on the
opposite face of the moon, we cannot decide.”
“Besides,” added Barbicane, “even to the most piercing eye a man cannot
be distinguished farther than three and a half miles off; so that, if
there are any Selenites, they can see our projectile, but we cannot see
them.”
Toward four in the morning, at the height of the fiftieth parallel, the
distance was reduced to 300 miles. To the left ran a line of mountains
capriciously shaped, lying in the full light. To the right, on the
contrary, lay a black hollow resembling a vast well, unfathomable and
gloomy, drilled into the lunar soil.
This hole was the “Black Lake”; it was Pluto, a deep circle which can
be conveniently studied from the earth, between the last quarter and
the new moon, when the shadows fall from west to east.
This black color is rarely met with on the surface of the satellite. As
yet it has only been recognized in the depths of the circle of
Endymion, to the east of the “Cold Sea,” in the northern hemisphere,
and at the bottom of Grimaldi’s circle, on the equator, toward the
eastern border of the orb.
Pluto is an annular mountain, situated in 51° north latitude, and 9°
east longitude. Its circuit is forty-seven miles long and thirty-two
broad.
Barbicane regretted that they were not passing directly above this vast
opening. There was an abyss to fathom, perhaps some mysterious
phenomenon to surprise; but the projectile’s course could not be
altered. They must rigidly submit. They could not guide a balloon,
still less a projectile, when once enclosed within its walls. Toward
five in the morning the northern limits of the “Sea of Rains” was at
length passed. The mounts of Condamine and Fontenelle remained—one on
the right, the other on the left. That part of the disc beginning with
60° was becoming quite mountainous. The glasses brought them to within
two miles, less than that separating the summit of Mont Blanc from the
level of the sea. The whole region was bristling with spikes and
circles. Toward the 60° Philolaus stood predominant at a height of
5,550 feet with its elliptical crater, and seen from this distance, the
disc showed a very fantastical appearance. Landscapes were presented to
the eye under very different conditions from those on the earth, and
also very inferior to them.
The moon having no atmosphere, the consequences arising from the
absence of this gaseous envelope have already been shown. No twilight
on her surface; night following day and day following night with the
suddenness of a lamp which is extinguished or lighted amid profound
darkness—no transition from cold to heat, the temperature falling in an
instant from boiling point to the cold of space.
Another consequence of this want of air is that absolute darkness
reigns where the sun’s rays do not penetrate. That which on earth is
called diffusion of light, that luminous matter which the air holds in
suspension, which creates the twilight and the daybreak, which produces
the _umbrae_ and _penumbrae_, and all the magic of _chiaro-oscuro_,
does not exist on the moon. Hence the harshness of contrasts, which
only admit of two colors, black and white. If a Selenite were to shade
his eyes from the sun’s rays, the sky would seem absolutely black, and
the stars would shine to him as on the darkest night. Judge of the
impression produced on Barbicane and his three friends by this strange
scene! Their eyes were confused. They could no longer grasp the
respective distances of the different plains. A lunar landscape without
the softening of the phenomena of _chiaro-oscuro_ could not be rendered
by an earthly landscape painter; it would be spots of ink on a white
page—nothing more.
This aspect was not altered even when the projectile, at the height of
80°, was only separated from the moon by a distance of fifty miles; nor
even when, at five in the morning, it passed at less than twenty-five
miles from the mountain of Gioja, a distance reduced by the glasses to
a quarter of a mile. It seemed as if the moon might be touched by the
hand! It seemed impossible that, before long, the projectile would not
strike her, if only at the north pole, the brilliant arch of which was
so distinctly visible on the black sky.
Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the scuttles and throw himself on to
the moon’s surface! A very useless attempt; for if the projectile could
not attain any point whatever of the satellite, Michel, carried along
by its motion, could not attain it either.
At that moment, at six o’clock, the lunar pole appeared. The disc only
presented to the travelers’ gaze one half brilliantly lit up, while the
other disappeared in the darkness. Suddenly the projectile passed the
line of demarcation between intense light and absolute darkness, and
was plunged in profound night!
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND A HALF
At the moment when this phenomenon took place so rapidly, the
projectile was skirting the moon’s north pole at less than twenty-five
miles distance. Some seconds had sufficed to plunge it into the
absolute darkness of space. The transition was so sudden, without
shade, without gradation of light, without attenuation of the luminous
waves, that the orb seemed to have been extinguished by a powerful
blow.
“Melted, disappeared!” Michel Ardan exclaimed, aghast.
Indeed, there was neither reflection nor shadow. Nothing more was to be
seen of that disc, formerly so dazzling. The darkness was complete. and
rendered even more so by the rays from the stars. It was “that
blackness” in which the lunar nights are insteeped, which last three
hundred and fifty-four hours and a half at each point of the disc, a
long night resulting from the equality of the translatory and rotary
movements of the moon. The projectile, immerged in the conical shadow
of the satellite, experienced the action of the solar rays no more than
any of its invisible points.
In the interior, the obscurity was complete. They could not see each
other. Hence the necessity of dispelling the darkness. However desirous
Barbicane might be to husband the gas, the reserve of which was small,
he was obliged to ask from it a fictitious light, an expensive
brilliancy which the sun then refused.
“Devil take the radiant orb!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “which forces us
to expend gas, instead of giving us his rays gratuitously.”
“Do not let us accuse the sun,” said Nicholl, “it is not his fault, but
that of the moon, which has come and placed herself like a screen
between us and it.”
“It is the sun!” continued Michel.
“It is the moon!” retorted Nicholl.
An idle dispute, which Barbicane put an end to by saying:
“My friends, it is neither the fault of the sun nor of the moon; it is
the fault of the _projectile_, which, instead of rigidly following its
course, has awkwardly missed it. To be more just, it is the fault of
that unfortunate meteor which has so deplorably altered our first
direction.”
“Well,” replied Michel Ardan, “as the matter is settled, let us have
breakfast. After a whole night of watching it is fair to build
ourselves up a little.”
This proposal meeting with no contradiction, Michel prepared the repast
in a few minutes. But they ate for eating’s sake, they drank without
toasts, without hurrahs. The bold travelers being borne away into
gloomy space, without their accustomed _cortege_ of rays, felt a vague
uneasiness in their hearts. The “strange” shadow so dear to Victor
Hugo’s pen bound them on all sides. But they talked over the
interminable night of three hundred and fifty-four hours and a half,
nearly fifteen days, which the law of physics has imposed on the
inhabitants of the moon.
Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of the causes and the
consequences of this curious phenomenon.
“Curious indeed,” said they; “for, if each hemisphere of the moon is
deprived of solar light for fifteen days, that above which we now float
does not even enjoy during its long night any view of the earth so
beautifully lit up. In a word she has no moon (applying this
designation to our globe) but on one side of her disc. Now if this were
the case with the earth—if, for example, Europe never saw the moon, and
she was only visible at the antipodes, imagine to yourself the
astonishment of a European on arriving in Australia.”
“They would make the voyage for nothing but to see the moon!” replied
Michel.
“Very well!” continued Barbicane, “that astonishment is reserved for
the Selenites who inhabit the face of the moon opposite to the earth, a
face which is ever invisible to our countrymen of the terrestrial
globe.”
“And which we should have seen,” added Nicholl, “if we had arrived here
when the moon was new, that is to say fifteen days later.”
“I will add, to make amends,” continued Barbicane, “that the
inhabitants of the visible face are singularly favored by nature, to
the detriment of their brethren on the invisible face. The latter, as
you see, have dark nights of 354 hours, without one single ray to break
the darkness. The other, on the contrary, when the sun which has given
its light for fifteen days sinks below the horizon, see a splendid orb
rise on the opposite horizon. It is the earth, which is thirteen times
greater than the diminutive moon that we know—the earth which developes
itself at a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen
times greater than that qualified by atmospheric strata—the earth which
only disappears at the moment when the sun reappears in its turn!”
“Nicely worded!” said Michel, “slightly academical perhaps.”
“It follows, then,” continued Barbicane, without knitting his brows,
“that the visible face of the disc must be very agreeable to inhabit,
since it always looks on either the sun when the moon is full, or on
the earth when the moon is new.”
“But,” said Nicholl, “that advantage must be well compensated by the
insupportable heat which the light brings with it.”
“The inconvenience, in that respect, is the same for the two faces, for
the earth’s light is evidently deprived of heat. But the invisible face
is still more searched by the heat than the visible face. I say that
for _you_, Nicholl, because Michel will probably not understand.”
“Thank you,” said Michel.
“Indeed,” continued Barbicane, “when the invisible face receives at the
same time light and heat from the sun, it is because the moon is new;
that is to say, she is situated between the sun and the earth. It
follows, then, considering the position which she occupies in
opposition when full, that she is nearer to the sun by twice her
distance from the earth; and that distance may be estimated at the
two-hundredth part of that which separates the sun from the earth, or
in round numbers 400,000 miles. So that invisible face is so much
nearer to the sun when she receives its rays.”
“Quite right,” replied Nicholl.
“On the contrary,” continued Barbicane.
“One moment,” said Michel, interrupting his grave companion.
“What do you want?”
“I ask to be allowed to continue the explanation.”
“And why?”
“To prove that I understand.”
“Get along with you,” said Barbicane, smiling.
“On the contrary,” said Michel, imitating the tone and gestures of the
president, “on the contrary, when the visible face of the moon is lit
by the sun, it is because the moon is full, that is to say, opposite
the sun with regard to the earth. The distance separating it from the
radiant orb is then increased in round numbers to 400,000 miles, and
the heat which she receives must be a little less.”
“Very well said!” exclaimed Barbicane. “Do you know, Michel, that, for
an amateur, you are intelligent.”
“Yes,” replied Michel coolly, “we are all so on the Boulevard des
Italiens.”
Barbicane gravely grasped the hand of his amiable companion, and
continued to enumerate the advantages reserved for the inhabitants of
the visible face.
Among others, he mentioned eclipses of the sun, which only take place
on this side of the lunar disc; since, in order that they may take
place, it is necessary for the moon to be _in opposition_. These
eclipses, caused by the interposition of the earth between the moon and
the sun, can last _two hours_; during which time, by reason of the rays
refracted by its atmosphere, the terrestrial globe can appear as
nothing but a black point upon the sun.
“So,” said Nicholl, “there is a hemisphere, that invisible hemisphere
which is very ill supplied, very ill treated, by nature.”
“Never mind,” replied Michel; “if we ever become Selenites, we will
inhabit the visible face. I like the light.”
“Unless, by any chance,” answered Nicholl, “the atmosphere should be
condensed on the other side, as certain astronomers pretend.”
“That would be a consideration,” said Michel.
Breakfast over, the observers returned to their post. They tried to see
through the darkened scuttles by extinguishing all light in the
projectile; but not a luminous spark made its way through the darkness.
One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. Why, having passed within
such a short distance of the moon—about twenty-five miles only—why the
projectile had not fallen? If its speed had been enormous, he could
have understood that the fall would not have taken place; but, with a
relatively moderate speed, that resistance to the moon’s attraction
could not be explained. Was the projectile under some foreign
influence? Did some kind of body retain it in the ether? It was quite
evident that it could never reach any point of the moon. Whither was it
going? Was it going farther from, or nearing, the disc? Was it being
borne in that profound darkness through the infinity of space? How
could they learn, how calculate, in the midst of this night? All these
questions made Barbicane uneasy, but he could not solve them.
Certainly, the invisible orb was _there_, perhaps only some few miles
off; but neither he nor his companions could see it. If there was any
noise on its surface, they could not hear it. Air, that medium of
sound, was wanting to transmit the groanings of that moon which the
Arabic legends call “a man already half granite, and still breathing.”
One must allow that that was enough to aggravate the most patient
observers. It was just that unknown hemisphere which was stealing from
their sight. That face which fifteen days sooner, or fifteen days
later, had been, or would be, splendidly illuminated by the solar rays,
was then being lost in utter darkness. In fifteen days where would the
projectile be? Who could say? Where would the chances of conflicting
attractions have drawn it to? The disappointment of the travelers in
the midst of this utter darkness may be imagined. All observation of
the lunar disc was impossible. The constellations alone claimed all
their attention; and we must allow that the astronomers Faye,
Charconac, and Secchi, never found themselves in circumstances so
favorable for their observation.
Indeed, nothing could equal the splendor of this starry world, bathed
in limpid ether. Its diamonds set in the heavenly vault sparkled
magnificently. The eye took in the firmament from the Southern Cross to
the North Star, those two constellations which in 12,000 years, by
reason of the succession of equinoxes, will resign their part of the
polar stars, the one to Canopus in the southern hemisphere, the other
to Wega in the northern. Imagination loses itself in this sublime
Infinity, amid which the projectile was gravitating, like a new star
created by the hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations
shone with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no
atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally dense and
of different degrees of humidity, produces this scintillation. These
stars were soft eyes, looking out into the dark night, amid the silence
of absolute space.
Long did the travelers stand mute, watching the constellated firmament,
upon which the moon, like a vast screen, made an enormous black hole.
But at length a painful sensation drew them from their watchings. This
was an intense cold, which soon covered the inside of the glass of the
scuttles with a thick coating of ice. The sun was no longer warming the
projectile with its direct rays, and thus it was losing the heat stored
up in its walls by degrees. This heat was rapidly evaporating into
space by radiation, and a considerably lower temperature was the
result. The humidity of the interior was changed into ice upon contact
with the glass, preventing all observation.
Nicholl consulted the thermometer, and saw that it had fallen to
seventeen degrees (Centigrade) below zero.[3] So that, in spite of the
many reasons for economizing, Barbicane, after having begged light from
the gas, was also obliged to beg for heat. The projectile’s low
temperature was no longer endurable. Its tenants would have been frozen
to death.
[3] 1° Fahrenheit.
“Well!” observed Michel, “we cannot reasonably complain of the monotony
of our journey! What variety we have had, at least in temperature. Now
we are blinded with light and saturated with heat, like the Indians of
the Pampas! now plunged into profound darkness, amid the cold, like the
Esquimaux of the north pole. No, indeed! we have no right to complain;
nature does wonders in our honor.”
“But,” asked Nicholl, “what is the temperature outside?”
“Exactly that of the planetary space,” replied Barbicane.
“Then,” continued Michel Ardan, “would not this be the time to make the
experiment which we dared not attempt when we were drowned in the sun’s
rays?
“It is now or never,” replied Barbicane, “for we are in a good position
to verify the temperature of space, and see if Fourier or Pouillet’s
calculations are exact.”
“In any case it is cold,” said Michel. “See! the steam of the interior
is condensing on the glasses of the scuttles. If the fall continues,
the vapor of our breath will fall in snow around us.”
“Let us prepare a thermometer,” said Barbicane.
We may imagine that an ordinary thermometer would afford no result
under the circumstances in which this instrument was to be exposed. The
mercury would have been frozen in its ball, as below 42° Fahrenheit
below zero it is no longer liquid. But Barbicane had furnished himself
with a spirit thermometer on Wafferdin’s system, which gives the minima
of excessively low temperatures.
Before beginning the experiment, this instrument was compared with an
ordinary one, and then Barbicane prepared to use it.
“How shall we set about it?” asked Nicholl.
“Nothing is easier,” replied Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss. “We
open the scuttle rapidly; throw out the instrument; it follows the
projectile with exemplary docility; and a quarter of an hour after,
draw it in.”
“With the hand?” asked Barbicane.
“With the hand,” replied Michel.
“Well, then, my friend, do not expose yourself,” answered Barbicane,
“for the hand that you draw in again will be nothing but a stump frozen
and deformed by the frightful cold.”
“Really!”
“You will feel as if you had had a terrible burn, like that of iron at
a white heat; for whether the heat leaves our bodies briskly or enters
briskly, it is exactly the same thing. Besides, I am not at all certain
that the objects we have thrown out are still following us.”
“Why not?” asked Nicholl.
“Because, if we are passing through an atmosphere of the slightest
density, these objects will be retarded. Again, the darkness prevents
our seeing if they still float around us. But in order not to expose
ourselves to the loss of our thermometer, we will fasten it, and we can
then more easily pull it back again.”
Barbicane’s advice was followed. Through the scuttle rapidly opened,
Nicholl threw out the instrument, which was held by a short cord, so
that it might be more easily drawn up. The scuttle had not been opened
more than a second, but that second had sufficed to let in a most
intense cold.
“The devil!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “it is cold enough to freeze a
white bear.”
Barbicane waited until half an hour had elapsed, which was more than
time enough to allow the instrument to fall to the level of the
surrounding temperature. Then it was rapidly pulled in.
Barbicane calculated the quantity of spirits of wine overflowed into
the little vial soldered to the lower part of the instrument, and said:
“A hundred and forty degrees Centigrade[4] below zero!”
[4] 218 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.
M. Pouillet was right and Fourier wrong. That was the undoubted
temperature of the starry space. Such is, perhaps, that of the lunar
continents, when the orb of night has lost by radiation all the heat
which fifteen days of sun have poured into her.
CHAPTER XV.
HYPERBOLA OR PARABOLA
We may, perhaps, be astonished to find Barbicane and his companions so
little occupied with the future reserved for them in their metal prison
which was bearing them through the infinity of space. Instead of asking
where they were going, they passed their time making experiments, as if
they had been quietly installed in their own study.
We might answer that men so strong-minded were above such
anxieties—that they did not trouble themselves about such trifles—and
that they had something else to do than to occupy their minds with the
future.
The truth was that they were not masters of their projectile; they
could neither check its course, nor alter its direction.
A sailor can change the head of his ship as he pleases; an aeronaut can
give a vertical motion to his balloon. They, on the contrary, had no
power over their vehicle. Every maneuver was forbidden. Hence the
inclination to let things alone, or as the sailors say, “let her run.”
Where did they find themselves at this moment, at eight o’clock in the
morning of the day called upon the earth the 6th of December? Very
certainly in the neighborhood of the moon, and even near enough for her
to look to them like an enormous black screen upon the firmament. As to
the distance which separated them, it was impossible to estimate it.
The projectile, held by some unaccountable force, had been within four
miles of grazing the satellite’s north pole.
But since entering the cone of shadow these last two hours, had the
distance increased or diminished? Every point of mark was wanting by
which to estimate both the direction and the speed of the projectile.
Perhaps it was rapidly leaving the disc, so that it would soon quit the
pure shadow. Perhaps, again, on the other hand, it might be nearing it
so much that in a short time it might strike some high point on the
invisible hemisphere, which would doubtlessly have ended the journey
much to the detriment of the travelers.
A discussion arose on this subject, and Michel Ardan, always ready with
an explanation, gave it as his opinion that the projectile, held by the
lunar attraction, would end by falling on the surface of the
terrestrial globe like an aerolite.
“First of all, my friend,” answered Barbicane, “every aerolite does not
fall to the earth; it is only a small proportion which do so; and if we
had passed into an aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we
should ever reach the surface of the moon.”
“But how if we get near enough?” replied Michel.
“Pure mistake,” replied Barbicane. “Have you not seen shooting stars
rush through the sky by thousands at certain seasons?”
“Yes.”
“Well, these stars, or rather corpuscles, only shine when they are
heated by gliding over the atmospheric layers. Now, if they enter the
atmosphere, they pass at least within forty miles of the earth, but
they seldom fall upon it. The same with our projectile. It may approach
very near to the moon, and not yet fall upon it.”
“But then,” asked Michel, “I shall be curious to know how our erring
vehicle will act in space?”
“I see but two hypotheses,” replied Barbicane, after some moments’
reflection.
“What are they?”
“The projectile has the choice between two mathematical curves, and it
will follow one or the other according to the speed with which it is
animated, and which at this moment I cannot estimate.”
“Yes,” said Nicholl, “it will follow either a parabola or a hyperbola.”
“Just so,” replied Barbicane. “With a certain speed it will assume the
parabola, and with a greater the hyperbola.”
“I like those grand words,” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “one knows directly
what they mean. And pray what is your parabola, if you please?”
“My friend,” answered the captain, “the parabola is a curve of the
second order, the result of the section of a cone intersected by a
plane parallel to one of the sides.”
“Ah! ah!” said Michel, in a satisfied tone.
“It is very nearly,” continued Nicholl, “the course described by a bomb
launched from a mortar.”
“Perfect! And the hyperbola?”
“The hyperbola, Michel, is a curve of the second order, produced by the
intersection of a conic surface and a plane parallel to its axis, and
constitutes two branches separated one from the other, both tending
indefinitely in the two directions.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Michel Ardan in a serious tone, as if they
had told him of some serious event. “What I particularly like in your
definition of the hyperbola (I was going to say hyperblague) is that it
is still more obscure than the word you pretend to define.”
Nicholl and Barbicane cared little for Michel Ardan’s fun. They were
deep in a scientific discussion. What curve would the projectile
follow? was their hobby. One maintained the hyperbola, the other the
parabola. They gave each other reasons bristling with _x_. Their
arguments were couched in language which made Michel jump. The
discussion was hot, and neither would give up his chosen curve to his
adversary.
This scientific dispute lasted so long that it made Michel very
impatient.
“Now, gentlemen cosines, will you cease to throw parabolas and
hyperbolas at each other’s heads? I want to understand the only
interesting question in the whole affair. We shall follow one or the
other of these curves? Good. But where will they lead us to?”
“Nowhere,” replied Nicholl.
“How, nowhere?”
“Evidently,” said Barbicane, “they are open curves, which may be
prolonged indefinitely.”
“Ah, savants!” cried Michel; “and what are either the one or the other
to us from the moment we know that they equally lead us into infinite
space?”
Barbicane and Nicholl could not forbear smiling. They had just been
creating “art for art’s sake.” Never had so idle a question been raised
at such an inopportune moment. The sinister truth remained that,
whether hyperbolically or parabolically borne away, the projectile
would never again meet either the earth or the moon.
What would become of these bold travelers in the immediate future? If
they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of thirst, in some
days, when the gas failed, they would die from want of air, unless the
cold had killed them first. Still, important as it was to economize the
gas, the excessive lowness of the surrounding temperature obliged them
to consume a certain quantity. Strictly speaking, they could do without
its _light_, but not without its _heat_. Fortunately the caloric
generated by Reiset’s and Regnaut’s apparatus raised the temperature of
the interior of the projectile a little, and without much expenditure
they were able to keep it bearable.
But observations had now become very difficult. the dampness of the
projectile was condensed on the windows and congealed immediately. This
cloudiness had to be dispersed continually. In any case they might hope
to be able to discover some phenomena of the highest interest.
But up to this time the disc remained dumb and dark. It did not answer
the multiplicity of questions put by these ardent minds; a matter which
drew this reflection from Michel, apparently a just one:
“If ever we begin this journey over again, we shall do well to choose
the time when the moon is at the full.”
“Certainly,” said Nicholl, “that circumstance will be more favorable. I
allow that the moon, immersed in the sun’s rays, will not be visible
during the transit, but instead we should see the earth, which would be
full. And what is more, if we were drawn round the moon, as at this
moment, we should at least have the advantage of seeing the invisible
part of her disc magnificently lit.”
“Well said, Nicholl,” replied Michel Ardan. “What do you think,
Barbicane?”
“I think this,” answered the grave president: “If ever we begin this
journey again, we shall start at the same time and under the same
conditions. Suppose we had attained our end, would it not have been
better to have found continents in broad daylight than a country
plunged in utter darkness? Would not our first installation have been
made under better circumstances? Yes, evidently. As to the invisible
side, we could have visited it in our exploring expeditions on the
lunar globe. So that the time of the full moon was well chosen. But we
ought to have arrived at the end; and in order to have so arrived, we
ought to have suffered no deviation on the road.”
“I have nothing to say to that,” answered Michel Ardan. “Here is,
however, a good opportunity lost of observing the other side of the
moon.”