But the projectile was now describing in the shadow that incalculable

course which no sight-mark would allow them to ascertain. Had its

direction been altered, either by the influence of the lunar

attraction, or by the action of some unknown star? Barbicane could not

say. But a change had taken place in the relative position of the

vehicle; and Barbicane verified it about four in the morning.

The change consisted in this, that the base of the projectile had

turned toward the moon’s surface, and was so held by a perpendicular

passing through its axis. The attraction, that is to say the weight,

had brought about this alteration. The heaviest part of the projectile

inclined toward the invisible disc as if it would fall upon it.

Was it falling? Were the travelers attaining that much desired end? No.

And the observation of a sign-point, quite inexplicable in itself,

showed Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing the moon, and that

it had shifted by following an almost concentric curve.

This point of mark was a luminous brightness, which Nicholl sighted

suddenly, on the limit of the horizon formed by the black disc. This

point could not be confounded with a star. It was a reddish

incandescence which increased by degrees, a decided proof that the

projectile was shifting toward it and not falling normally on the

surface of the moon.

“A volcano! it is a volcano in action!” cried Nicholl; “a disemboweling

of the interior fires of the moon! That world is not quite

extinguished.”

“Yes, an eruption,” replied Barbicane, who was carefully studying the

phenomenon through his night glass. “What should it be, if not a

volcano?”

“But, then,” said Michel Ardan, “in order to maintain that combustion,

there must be air. So the atmosphere does surround that part of the

moon.”

“Perhaps so,” replied Barbicane, “but not necessarily.

The volcano, by the decomposition of certain substances, can provide

its own oxygen, and thus throw flames into space. It seems to me that

the deflagration, by the intense brilliancy of the substances in

combustion, is produced in pure oxygen. We must not be in a hurry to

proclaim the existence of a lunar atmosphere.”

The fiery mountain must have been situated about the 45° south latitude

on the invisible part of the disc; but, to Barbicane’s great

displeasure, the curve which the projectile was describing was taking

it far from the point indicated by the eruption. Thus he could not

determine its nature exactly. Half an hour after being sighted, this

luminous point had disappeared behind the dark horizon; but the

verification of this phenomenon was of considerable consequence in

their selenographic studies. It proved that all heat had not yet

disappeared from the bowels of this globe; and where heat exists, who

can affirm that the vegetable kingdom, nay, even the animal kingdom

itself, has not up to this time resisted all destructive influences?

The existence of this volcano in eruption, unmistakably seen by these

earthly savants, would doubtless give rise to many theories favorable

to the grave question of the habitability of the moon.

Barbicane allowed himself to be carried away by these reflections. He

forgot himself in a deep reverie in which the mysterious destiny of the

lunar world was uppermost. He was seeking to combine together the facts

observed up to that time, when a new incident recalled him briskly to

reality. This incident was more than a cosmical phenomenon; it was a

threatened danger, the consequence of which might be disastrous in the

extreme.

Suddenly, in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness, an

enormous mass appeared. It was like a moon, but an incandescent moon

whose brilliancy was all the more intolerable as it cut sharply on the

frightful darkness of space. This mass, of a circular form, threw a

light which filled the projectile. The forms of Barbicane, Nicholl, and

Michel Ardan, bathed in its white sheets, assumed that livid spectral

appearance which physicians produce with the fictitious light of

alcohol impregnated with salt.

“By Jove!” cried Michel Ardan, “we are hideous. What is that

ill-conditioned moon?”

“A meteor,” replied Barbicane.

“A meteor burning in space?”

“Yes.”

This shooting globe suddenly appearing in shadow at a distance of at

most 200 miles, ought, according to Barbicane, to have a diameter of

2,000 yards. It advanced at a speed of about one mile and a half per

second. It cut the projectile’s path and must reach it in some minutes.

As it approached it grew to enormous proportions.

Imagine, if possible, the situation of the travelers! It is impossible

to describe it. In spite of their courage, their _sang-froid_, their

carelessness of danger, they were mute, motionless with stiffened

limbs, a prey to frightful terror. Their projectile, the course of

which they could not alter, was rushing straight on this ignited mass,

more intense than the open mouth of an oven. It seemed as though they

were being precipitated toward an abyss of fire.

Barbicane had seized the hands of his two companions, and all three

looked through their half-open eyelids upon that asteroid heated to a

white heat. If thought was not destroyed within them, if their brains

still worked amid all this awe, they must have given themselves up for

lost.

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the meteor (to them two

centuries of anguish) the projectile seemed almost about to strike it,

when the globe of fire burst like a bomb, but without making any noise

in that void where sound, which is but the agitation of the layers of

air, could not be generated.

Nicholl uttered a cry, and he and his companions rushed to the scuttle.

What a sight! What pen can describe it? What palette is rich enough in

colors to reproduce so magnificent a spectacle?

It was like the opening of a crater, like the scattering of an immense

conflagration. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up and irradiated

space with their fires. Every size, every color, was there

intermingled. There were rays of yellow and pale yellow, red, green,

gray—a crown of fireworks of all colors. Of the enormous and

much-dreaded globe there remained nothing but these fragments carried

in all directions, now become asteroids in their turn, some flaming

like a sword, some surrounded by a whitish cloud, and others leaving

behind them trains of brilliant cosmical dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed and struck each other, scattering

still smaller fragments, some of which struck the projectile. Its left

scuttle was even cracked by a violent shock. It seemed to be floating

amid a hail of howitzer shells, the smallest of which might destroy it

instantly.

The light which saturated the ether was so wonderfully intense, that

Michel, drawing Barbicane and Nicholl to his window, exclaimed, “The

invisible moon, visible at last!”

And through a luminous emanation, which lasted some seconds, the whole

three caught a glimpse of that mysterious disc which the eye of man now

saw for the first time. What could they distinguish at a distance which

they could not estimate? Some lengthened bands along the disc, real

clouds formed in the midst of a very confined atmosphere, from which

emerged not only all the mountains, but also projections of less

importance; its circles, its yawning craters, as capriciously placed as

on the visible surface. Then immense spaces, no longer arid plains, but

real seas, oceans, widely distributed, reflecting on their liquid

surface all the dazzling magic of the fires of space; and, lastly, on

the surface of the continents, large dark masses, looking like immense

forests under the rapid illumination of a brilliance.

Was it an illusion, a mistake, an optical illusion? Could they give a

scientific assent to an observation so superficially obtained? Dared

they pronounce upon the question of its habitability after so slight a

glimpse of the invisible disc?

But the lightnings in space subsided by degrees; its accidental

brilliancy died away; the asteroids dispersed in different directions

and were extinguished in the distance.

The ether returned to its accustomed darkness; the stars, eclipsed for

a moment, again twinkled in the firmament, and the disc, so hastily

discerned, was again buried in impenetrable night.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, and a very unforseen

one. Who would have thought of such an encounter with meteors? These

erring bodies might create serious perils for the travelers. They were

to them so many sandbanks upon that sea of ether which, less fortunate

than sailors, they could not escape. But did these adventurers complain

of space? No, not since nature had given them the splendid sight of a

cosmical meteor bursting from expansion, since this inimitable

firework, which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lit up for some seconds

the invisible glory of the moon. In that flash, continents, seas, and

forests had become visible to them. Did an atmosphere, then, bring to

this unknown face its life-giving atoms? Questions still insoluble, and

forever closed against human curiousity!

It was then half-past three in the afternoon. The projectile was

following its curvilinear direction round the moon. Had its course

again been altered by the meteor? It was to be feared so. But the

projectile must describe a curve unalterably determined by the laws of

mechanical reasoning. Barbicane was inclined to believe that this curve

would be rather a parabola than a hyperbola. But admitting the

parabola, the projectile must quickly have passed through the cone of

shadow projected into space opposite the sun. This cone, indeed, is

very narrow, the angular diameter of the moon being so little when

compared with the diameter of the orb of day; and up to this time the

projectile had been floating in this deep shadow. Whatever had been its

speed (and it could not have been insignificant), its period of

occultation continued. That was evident, but perhaps that would not

have been the case in a supposedly rigidly parabolical trajectory—a new

problem which tormented Barbicane’s brain, imprisoned as he was in a

circle of unknowns which he could not unravel.

Neither of the travelers thought of taking an instant’s repose. Each

one watched for an unexpected fact, which might throw some new light on

their uranographic studies. About five o’clock, Michel Ardan

distributed, under the name of dinner, some pieces of bread and cold

meat, which were quickly swallowed without either of them abandoning

their scuttle, the glass of which was incessantly encrusted by the

condensation of vapor.

About forty-five minutes past five in the evening, Nicholl, armed with

his glass, sighted toward the southern border of the moon, and in the

direction followed by the projectile, some bright points cut upon the

dark shield of the sky. They looked like a succession of sharp points

lengthened into a tremulous line. They were very bright. Such appeared

the terminal line of the moon when in one of her octants.

They could not be mistaken. It was no longer a simple meteor. This

luminous ridge had neither color nor motion. Nor was it a volcano in

eruption. And Barbicane did not hesitate to pronounce upon it.

“The sun!” he exclaimed.

“What! the sun?” answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.

“Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself lighting up the summit

of the mountains situated on the southern borders of the moon. We are

evidently nearing the south pole.”

“After having passed the north pole,” replied Michel. “We have made the

circuit of our satellite, then?”

“Yes, my good Michel.”

“Then, no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more open curves to

fear?”

“No, but a closed curve.”

“Which is called—”

“An ellipse. Instead of losing itself in interplanetary space, it is

probable that the projectile will describe an elliptical orbit around

the moon.”

“Indeed!”

“And that it will become _her_ satellite.”

“Moon of the moon!” cried Michel Ardan.

“Only, I would have you observe, my worthy friend,” replied Barbicane,

“that we are none the less lost for that.”

“Yes, in another manner, and much more pleasantly,” answered the

careless Frenchman with his most amiable smile.

CHAPTER XVII.

TYCHO

At six in the evening the projectile passed the south pole at less than

forty miles off, a distance equal to that already reached at the north

pole. The elliptical curve was being rigidly carried out.

At this moment the travelers once more entered the blessed rays of the

sun. They saw once more those stars which move slowly from east to

west. The radiant orb was saluted by a triple hurrah. With its light it

also sent heat, which soon pierced the metal walls. The glass resumed

its accustomed appearance. The layers of ice melted as if by

enchantment; and immediately, for economy’s sake, the gas was put out,

the air apparatus alone consuming its usual quantity.

“Ah!” said Nicholl, “these rays of heat are good. With what impatience

must the Selenites wait the reappearance of the orb of day.”

“Yes,” replied Michel Ardan, “imbibing as it were the brilliant ether,

light and heat, all life is contained in them.”

At this moment the bottom of the projectile deviated somewhat from the

lunar surface, in order to follow the slightly lengthened elliptical

orbit. From this point, had the earth been at the full, Barbicane and

his companions could have seen it, but immersed in the sun’s

irradiation she was quite invisible. Another spectacle attracted their

attention, that of the southern part of the moon, brought by the

glasses to within 450 yards. They did not again leave the scuttles, and

noted every detail of this fantastical continent.

Mounts Doerful and Leibnitz formed two separate groups very near the

south pole. The first group extended from the pole to the eighty-fourth

parallel, on the eastern part of the orb; the second occupied the

eastern border, extending from the 65° of latitude to the pole.

On their capriciously formed ridge appeared dazzling sheets, as

mentioned by Pere Secchi. With more certainty than the illustrious

Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to recognize their nature.

“They are snow,” he exclaimed.

“Snow?” repeated Nicholl.

“Yes, Nicholl, snow; the surface of which is deeply frozen. See how

they reflect the luminous rays. Cooled lava would never give out such

intense reflection. There must then be water, there must be air on the

moon. As little as you please, but the fact can no longer be

contested.” No, it could not be. And if ever Barbicane should see the

earth again, his notes will bear witness to this great fact in his

selenographic observations.

These mountains of Doerful and Leibnitz rose in the midst of plains of

a medium extent, which were bounded by an indefinite succession of

circles and annular ramparts. These two chains are the only ones met

with in this region of circles. Comparatively but slightly marked, they

throw up here and there some sharp points, the highest summit of which

attains an altitude of 24,600 feet.

But the projectile was high above all this landscape, and the

projections disappeared in the intense brilliancy of the disc. And to

the eyes of the travelers there reappeared that original aspect of the

lunar landscapes, raw in tone, without gradation of colors, and without

degrees of shadow, roughly black and white, from the want of diffusion

of light.

But the sight of this desolate world did not fail to captivate them by

its very strangeness. They were moving over this region as if they had

been borne on the breath of some storm, watching heights defile under

their feet, piercing the cavities with their eyes, going down into the

rifts, climbing the ramparts, sounding these mysterious holes, and

leveling all cracks. But no trace of vegetation, no appearance of

cities; nothing but stratification, beds of lava, overflowings polished

like immense mirrors, reflecting the sun’s rays with overpowering

brilliancy. Nothing belonging to a _living_ world—everything to a dead

world, where avalanches, rolling from the summits of the mountains,

would disperse noiselessly at the bottom of the abyss, retaining the

motion, but wanting the sound. In any case it was the image of death,

without its being possible even to say that life had ever existed

there.

Michel Ardan, however, thought he recognized a heap of ruins, to which

he drew Barbicane’s attention. It was about the 80th parallel, in 30°

longitude. This heap of stones, rather regularly placed, represented a

vast fortress, overlooking a long rift, which in former days had served

as a bed to the rivers of prehistorical times. Not far from that, rose

to a height of 17,400 feet the annular mountain of Short, equal to the

Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his accustomed ardor, maintained

“the evidences” of his fortress. Beneath it he discerned the dismantled

ramparts of a town; here the still intact arch of a portico, there two

or three columns lying under their base; farther on, a succession of

arches which must have supported the conduit of an aqueduct; in another

part the sunken pillars of a gigantic bridge, run into the thickest

parts of the rift. He distinguished all this, but with so much

imagination in his glance, and through glasses so fantastical, that we

must mistrust his observation. But who could affirm, who would dare to

say, that the amiable fellow did not really see that which his two

companions would not see?

Moments were too precious to be sacrificed in idle discussion. The

selenite city, whether imaginary or not, had already disappeared afar

off. The distance of the projectile from the lunar disc was on the

increase, and the details of the soil were being lost in a confused

jumble. The reliefs, the circles, the craters, and the plains alone

remained, and still showed their boundary lines distinctly. At this

moment, to the left, lay extended one of the finest circles of lunar

orography, one of the curiosities of this continent. It was Newton,

which Barbicane recognized without trouble, by referring to the _Mappa

Selenographica_.

Newton is situated in exactly 77° south latitude, and 16° east

longitude. It forms an annular crater, the ramparts of which, rising to

a height of 21,300 feet, seemed to be impassable.

Barbicane made his companions observe that the height of this mountain

above the surrounding plain was far from equaling the depth of its

crater. This enormous hole was beyond all measurement, and formed a

gloomy abyss, the bottom of which the sun’s rays could never reach.

There, according to Humboldt, reigns utter darkness, which the light of

the sun and the earth cannot break. Mythologists could well have made

it the mouth of hell.

“Newton,” said Barbicane, “is the most perfect type of these annular

mountains, of which the earth possesses no sample. They prove that the

moon’s formation, by means of cooling, is due to violent causes; for

while, under the pressure of internal fires the reliefs rise to

considerable height, the depths withdraw far below the lunar level.”

“I do not dispute the fact,” replied Michel Ardan.

Some minutes after passing Newton, the projectile directly overlooked

the annular mountains of Moret. It skirted at some distance the summits

of Blancanus, and at about half-past seven in the evening reached the

circle of Clavius.

This circle, one of the most remarkable of the disc, is situated in 58°

south latitude, and 15° east longitude. Its height is estimated at

22,950 feet. The travelers, at a distance of twenty-four miles (reduced

to four by their glasses) could admire this vast crater in its

entirety.

“Terrestrial volcanoes,” said Barbicane, “are but mole-hills compared

with those of the moon. Measuring the old craters formed by the first

eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, we find them little more than three

miles in breadth. In France the circle of Cantal measures six miles

across; at Ceyland the circle of the island is forty miles, which is

considered the largest on the globe. What are these diameters against

that of Clavius, which we overlook at this moment?”

“What is its breadth?” asked Nicholl.

“It is 150 miles,” replied Barbicane. “This circle is certainly the

most important on the moon, but many others measure 150, 100, or 75

miles.”

“Ah! my friends,” exclaimed Michel, “can you picture to yourselves what

this now peaceful orb of night must have been when its craters, filled

with thunderings, vomited at the same time smoke and tongues of flame.

What a wonderful spectacle then, and now what decay! This moon is

nothing more than a thin carcase of fireworks, whose squibs, rockets,

serpents, and suns, after a superb brilliancy, have left but sadly

broken cases. Who can say the cause, the reason, the motive force of

these cataclysms?”

Barbicane was not listening to Michel Ardan; he was contemplating these

ramparts of Clavius, formed by large mountains spread over several

miles. At the bottom of the immense cavity burrowed hundreds of small

extinguished craters, riddling the soil like a colander, and overlooked

by a peak 15,000 feet high.

Around the plain appeared desolate. Nothing so arid as these reliefs,

nothing so sad as these ruins of mountains, and (if we may so express

ourselves) these fragments of peaks and mountains which strewed the

soil. The satellite seemed to have burst at this spot.

The projectile was still advancing, and this movement did not subside.

Circles, craters, and uprooted mountains succeeded each other

incessantly. No more plains; no more seas. A never ending Switzerland

and Norway. And lastly, in the canter of this region of crevasses, the

most splendid mountain on the lunar disc, the dazzling Tycho, in which

posterity will ever preserve the name of the illustrious Danish

astronomer.

In observing the full moon in a cloudless sky no one has failed to

remark this brilliant point of the southern hemisphere. Michel Ardan

used every metaphor that his imagination could supply to designate it

by. To him this Tycho was a focus of light, a center of irradiation, a

crater vomiting rays. It was the tire of a brilliant wheel, an

_asteria_ enclosing the disc with its silver tentacles, an enormous eye

filled with flames, a glory carved for Pluto’s head, a star launched by

the Creator’s hand, and crushed against the face of the moon!

Tycho forms such a concentration of light that the inhabitants of the

earth can see it without glasses, though at a distance of 240,000

miles! Imagine, then, its intensity to the eye of observers placed at a

distance of only fifty miles! Seen through this pure ether, its

brilliancy was so intolerable that Barbicane and his friends were

obliged to blacken their glasses with the gas smoke before they could

bear the splendor. Then silent, scarcely uttering an interjection of

admiration, they gazed, they contemplated. All their feelings, all

their impressions, were concentrated in that look, as under any violent

emotion all life is concentrated at the heart.

Tycho belongs to the system of radiating mountains, like Aristarchus

and Copernicus; but it is of all the most complete and decided, showing

unquestionably the frightful volcanic action to which the formation of

the moon is due. Tycho is situated in 43° south latitude, and 12° east

longitude. Its center is occupied by a crater fifty miles broad. It

assumes a slightly elliptical form, and is surrounded by an enclosure

of annular ramparts, which on the east and west overlook the outer

plain from a height of 15,000 feet. It is a group of Mont Blancs,

placed round one common center and crowned by radiating beams.

What this incomparable mountain really is, with all the projections

converging toward it, and the interior excrescences of its crater,

photography itself could never represent. Indeed, it is during the full

moon that Tycho is seen in all its splendor. Then all shadows

disappear, the foreshortening of perspective disappears, and all proofs

become white—a disagreeable fact: for this strange region would have

been marvelous if reproduced with photographic exactness. It is but a

group of hollows, craters, circles, a network of crests; then, as far

as the eye could see, a whole volcanic network cast upon this encrusted

soil. One can then understand that the bubbles of this central eruption

have kept their first form. Crystallized by cooling, they have

stereotyped that aspect which the moon formerly presented when under

the Plutonian forces.

The distance which separated the travelers from the annular summits of

Tycho was not so great but that they could catch the principal details.

Even on the causeway forming the fortifications of Tycho, the mountains

hanging on to the interior and exterior sloping flanks rose in stories

like gigantic terraces. They appeared to be higher by 300 or 400 feet

to the west than to the east. No system of terrestrial encampment could

equal these natural fortifications. A town built at the bottom of this

circular cavity would have been utterly inaccessible.

Inaccessible and wonderfully extended over this soil covered with

picturesque projections! Indeed, nature had not left the bottom of this

crater flat and empty. It possessed its own peculiar orography, a

mountainous system, making it a world in itself. The travelers could

distinguish clearly cones, central hills, remarkable positions of the

soil, naturally placed to receive the _chefs-d’œuvre_ of Selenite

architecture. There was marked out the place for a temple, here the

ground of a forum, on this spot the plan of a palace, in another the

plateau for a citadel; the whole overlooked by a central mountain of

1,500 feet. A vast circle, in which ancient Rome could have been held

in its entirety ten times over.

“Ah!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, enthusiastic at the sight; “what a grand

town might be constructed within that ring of mountains! A quiet city,

a peaceful refuge, beyond all human misery. How calm and isolated those

misanthropes, those haters of humanity might live there, and all who

have a distaste for social life!”

“All! It would be too small for them,” replied Barbicane simply.

CHAPTER XVIII.

GRAVE QUESTIONS

But the projectile had passed the _enceinte_ of Tycho, and Barbicane

and his two companions watched with scrupulous attention the brilliant

rays which the celebrated mountain shed so curiously over the horizon.

What was this radiant glory? What geological phenomenon had designed

these ardent beams? This question occupied Barbicane’s mind.

Under his eyes ran in all directions luminous furrows, raised at the

edges and concave in the center, some twelve miles, others thirty miles

broad. These brilliant trains extended in some places to within 600

miles of Tycho, and seemed to cover, particularly toward the east, the

northeast and the north, the half of the southern hemisphere. One of

these jets extended as far as the circle of Neander, situated on the

40th meridian. Another, by a slight curve, furrowed the “Sea of

Nectar,” breaking against the chain of Pyrenees, after a circuit of 800

miles. Others, toward the west, covered the “Sea of Clouds” and the

“Sea of Humors” with a luminous network. What was the origin of these

sparkling rays, which shone on the plains as well as on the reliefs, at

whatever height they might be? All started from a common center, the

crater of Tycho. They sprang from him. Herschel attributed their

brilliancy to currents of lava congealed by the cold; an opinion,

however, which has not been generally adopted. Other astronomers have

seen in these inexplicable rays a kind of moraines, rows of erratic

blocks, which had been thrown up at the period of Tycho’s formation.

“And why not?” asked Nicholl of Barbicane, who was relating and

rejecting these different opinions.

“Because the regularity of these luminous lines, and the violence

necessary to carry volcanic matter to such distances, is inexplicable.”

“Eh! by Jove!” replied Michel Ardan, “it seems easy enough to me to

explain the origin of these rays.”

“Indeed?” said Barbicane.

“Indeed,” continued Michel. “It is enough to say that it is a vast

star, similar to that produced by a ball or a stone thrown at a square

of glass!”

“Well!” replied Barbicane, smiling. “And what hand would be powerful

enough to throw a ball to give such a shock as that?”

“The hand is not necessary,” answered Nicholl, not at all confounded;

“and as to the stone, let us suppose it to be a comet.”

“Ah! those much-abused comets!” exclaimed Barbicane. “My brave Michel,

your explanation is not bad; but your comet is useless. The shock which

produced that rent must have some from the inside of the star. A

violent contraction of the lunar crust, while cooling, might suffice to

imprint this gigantic star.”

“A contraction! something like a lunar stomach-ache.” said Michel

Ardan.

“Besides,” added Barbicane, “this opinion is that of an English savant,

Nasmyth, and it seems to me to sufficiently explain the radiation of

these mountains.”

“That Nasmyth was no fool!” replied Michel.

Long did the travelers, whom such a sight could never weary, admire the

splendors of Tycho. Their projectile, saturated with luminous gleams in

the double irradiation of sun and moon, must have appeared like an

incandescent globe. They had passed suddenly from excessive cold to

intense heat. Nature was thus preparing them to become Selenites.

Become Selenites! That idea brought up once more the question of the

habitability of the moon. After what they had seen, could the travelers

solve it? Would they decide for or against it? Michel Ardan persuaded

his two friends to form an opinion, and asked them directly if they

thought that men and animals were represented in the lunar world.

“I think that we can answer,” said Barbicane; “but according to my idea

the question ought not to be put in that form. I ask it to be put

differently.”

“Put it your own way,” replied Michel.

“Here it is,” continued Barbicane. “The problem is a double one, and

requires a double solution. Is the moon _habitable_? Has the moon ever

been _inhabitable_?”

“Good!” replied Nicholl. “First let us see whether the moon is

habitable.”

“To tell the truth, I know nothing about it,” answered Michel.

“And I answer in the negative,” continued Barbicane. “In her actual

state, with her surrounding atmosphere certainly very much reduced, her

seas for the most part dried up, her insufficient supply of water

restricted, vegetation, sudden alternations of cold and heat, her days

and nights of 354 hours—the moon does not seem habitable to me, nor

does she seem propitious to animal development, nor sufficient for the

wants of existence as we understand it.”

“Agreed,” replied Nicholl. “But is not the moon habitable for creatures

differently organized from ourselves?”

“That question is more difficult to answer, but I will try; and I ask

Nicholl if _motion_ appears to him to be a necessary result of _life_,

whatever be its organization?”

“Without a doubt!” answered Nicholl.

“Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observed the

lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and that nothing

seemed to us to move on the moon’s surface. The presence of any kind of

life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks, such as divers

buildings, and even by ruins. And what have we seen? Everywhere and

always the geological works of nature, never the work of man. If, then,

there exist representatives of the animal kingdom on the moon, they

must have fled to those unfathomable cavities which the eye cannot

reach; which I cannot admit, for they must have left traces of their

passage on those plains which the atmosphere must cover, however

slightly raised it may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There

remains but one hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion,

which is life, is foreign.”

“One might as well say, living creatures which do not live,” replied

Michel.

“Just so,” said Barbicane, “which for us has no meaning.”

“Then we may form our opinion?” said Michel.

“Yes,” replied Nicholl.

“Very well,” continued Michel Ardan, “the Scientific Commission

assembled in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having founded their

argument on facts recently observed, decide unanimously upon the

question of the habitability of the moon—‘_No!_ the moon is not

habitable.’”

This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to his notebook,

where the process of the sitting of the 6th of December may be seen.

“Now,” said Nicholl, “let us attack the second question, an

indispensable complement of the first. I ask the honorable commission,

if the moon is not habitable, has she ever been inhabited, Citizen

Barbicane?”

“My friends,” replied Barbicane, “I did not undertake this journey in

order to form an opinion on the past habitability of our satellite; but

I will add that our personal observations only confirm me in this

opinion. I believe, indeed I affirm, that the moon has been inhabited

by a human race organized like our own; that she has produced animals

anatomically formed like the terrestrial animals: but I add that these

races, human and animal, have had their day, and are now forever

extinct!”

“Then,” asked Michel, “the moon must be older than the earth?”

“No!” said Barbicane decidedly, “but a world which has grown old

quicker, and whose formation and deformation have been more rapid.

Relatively, the organizing force of matter has been much more violent

in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the terrestrial

globe. The actual state of this cracked, twisted, and burst disc

abundantly proves this. The moon and the earth were nothing but gaseous

masses originally. These gases have passed into a liquid state under

different influences, and the solid masses have been formed later. But

most certainly our sphere was still gaseous or liquid, when the moon

was solidified by cooling, and had become habitable.”

“I believe it,” said Nicholl.

“Then,” continued Barbicane, “an atmosphere surrounded it, the waters

contained within this gaseous envelope could not evaporate. Under the

influence of air, water, light, solar heat, and central heat,

vegetation took possession of the continents prepared to receive it,

and certainly life showed itself about this period, for nature does not

expend herself in vain; and a world so wonderfully formed for

habitation must necessarily be inhabited.”

“But,” said Nicholl, “many phenomena inherent in our satellite might

cramp the expansion of the animal and vegetable kingdom. For example,

its days and nights of 354 hours?”

“At the terrestrial poles they last six months,” said Michel.

“An argument of little value, since the poles are not inhabited.”

“Let us observe, my friends,” continued Barbicane, “that if in the

actual state of the moon its long nights and long days created

differences of temperature insupportable to organization, it was not so

at the historical period of time. The atmosphere enveloped the disc

with a fluid mantle; vapor deposited itself in the shape of clouds;

this natural screen tempered the ardor of the solar rays, and retained

the nocturnal radiation. Light, like heat, can diffuse itself in the

air; hence an equality between the influences which no longer exists,

now that atmosphere has almost entirely disappeared. And now I am going

to astonish you.”

“Astonish us?” said Michel Ardan.

“I firmly believe that at the period when the moon was inhabited, the

nights and days did not last 354 hours!”

“And why?” asked Nicholl quickly.

“Because most probably then the rotary motion of the moon upon her axis

was not equal to her revolution, an equality which presents each part

of her disc during fifteen days to the action of the solar rays.”

“Granted,” replied Nicholl, “but why should not these two motions have

been equal, as they are really so?”

“Because that equality has only been determined by terrestrial

attraction. And who can say that this attraction was powerful enough to

alter the motion of the moon at that period when the earth was still

fluid?”

“Just so,” replied Nicholl; “and who can say that the moon has always

been a satellite of the earth?”

“And who can say,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “that the moon did not exist

before the earth?”

Their imaginations carried them away into an indefinite field of

hypothesis. Barbicane sought to restrain them.

“Those speculations are too high,” said he; “problems utterly

insoluble. Do not let us enter upon them. Let us only admit the

insufficiency of the primordial attraction; and then by the inequality

of the two motions of rotation and revolution, the days and nights

could have succeeded each other on the moon as they succeed each other

on the earth. Besides, even without these conditions, life was

possible.”

“And so,” asked Michel Ardan, “humanity has disappeared from the moon?”

“Yes,” replied Barbicane, “after having doubtless remained persistently

for millions of centuries; by degrees the atmosphere becoming rarefied,

the disc became uninhabitable, as the terrestrial globe will one day

become by cooling.”

“By cooling?”

“Certainly,” replied Barbicane; “as the internal fires became

extinguished, and the incandescent matter concentrated itself, the

lunar crust cooled. By degrees the consequences of these phenomena

showed themselves in the disappearance of organized beings, and by the

disappearance of vegetation. Soon the atmosphere was rarefied, probably

withdrawn by terrestrial attraction; then aerial departure of

respirable air, and disappearance of water by means of evaporation. At

this period the moon becoming uninhabitable, was no longer inhabited.

It was a dead world, such as we see it to-day.”

“And you say that the same fate is in store for the earth?”

“Most probably.”

“But when?”

“When the cooling of its crust shall have made it uninhabitable.”

“And have they calculated the time which our unfortunate sphere will

take to cool?”

“Certainly.”

“And you know these calculations?”

“Perfectly.”

“But speak, then, my clumsy savant,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “for you

make me boil with impatience!”

“Very well, my good Michel,” replied Barbicane quietly; “we know what

diminution of temperature the earth undergoes in the lapse of a

century. And according to certain calculations, this mean temperature

will after a period of 400,000 years, be brought down to zero!”

“Four hundred thousand years!” exclaimed Michel. “Ah! I breathe again.

Really I was frightened to hear you; I imagined that we had not more

than 50,000 years to live.”

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at their companion’s

uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wished to end the discussion, put the

second question, which had just been considered again.

“Has the moon been inhabited?” he asked.

The answer was unanimously in the affirmative. But during this

discussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories, the projectile was

rapidly leaving the moon: the lineaments faded away from the travelers’

eyes, mountains were confused in the distance; and of all the

wonderful, strange, and fantastical form of the earth’s satellite,

there soon remained nothing but the imperishable remembrance.

CHAPTER XIX.

A STRUGGLE AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE

For a long time Barbicane and his companions looked silently and sadly

upon that world which they had only seen from a distance, as Moses saw

the land of Canaan, and which they were leaving without a possibility

of ever returning to it. The projectile’s position with regard to the

moon had altered, and the base was now turned to the earth.

This change, which Barbicane verified, did not fail to surprise them.

If the projectile was to gravitate round the satellite in an elliptical

orbit, why was not its heaviest part turned toward it, as the moon

turns hers to the earth? That was a difficult point.

In watching the course of the projectile they could see that on leaving

the moon it followed a course analogous to that traced in approaching

her. It was describing a very long ellipse, which would most likely

extend to the point of equal attraction, where the influences of the

earth and its satellite are neutralized.

Such was the conclusion which Barbicane very justly drew from facts

already observed, a conviction which his two friends shared with him.

“And when arrived at this dead point, what will become of us?” asked

Michel Ardan.

“We don’t know,” replied Barbicane.

“But one can draw some hypotheses, I suppose?”

“Two,” answered Barbicane; “either the projectile’s speed will be

insufficient, and it will remain forever immovable on this line of

double attraction—”

“I prefer the other hypothesis, whatever it may be,” interrupted

Michel.

“Or,” continued Barbicane, “its speed will be sufficient, and it will

continue its elliptical course, to gravitate forever around the orb of

night.”

“A revolution not at all consoling,” said Michel, “to pass to the state

of humble servants to a moon whom we are accustomed to look upon as our

own handmaid. So that is the fate in store for us?”

Neither Barbicane nor Nicholl answered.

“You do not answer,” continued Michel impatiently.

“There is nothing to answer,” said Nicholl.

“Is there nothing to try?”

“No,” answered Barbicane. “Do you pretend to fight against the

impossible?”

“Why not? Do one Frenchman and two Americans shrink from such a word?”

“But what would you do?”

“Subdue this motion which is bearing us away.”

“Subdue it?”

“Yes,” continued Michel, getting animated, “or else alter it, and

employ it to the accomplishment of our own ends.”

“And how?”

“That is your affair. If artillerymen are not masters of their

projectile they are not artillerymen. If the projectile is to command

the gunner, we had better ram the gunner into the gun. My faith! fine

savants! who do not know what is to become of us after inducing me—”

“Inducing you!” cried Barbicane and Nicholl. “Inducing you! What do you

mean by that?”

“No recrimination,” said Michel. “I do not complain, the trip has

pleased me, and the projectile agrees with me; but let us do all that

is humanly possible to do the fall somewhere, even if only on the

moon.”

“We ask no better, my worthy Michel,” replied Barbicane, “but means

fail us.”

“We cannot alter the motion of the projectile?”

“No.”

“Nor diminish its speed?”

“No.”

“Not even by lightening it, as they lighten an overloaded vessel?”

“What would you throw out?” said Nicholl. “We have no ballast on board;

and indeed it seems to me that if lightened it would go much quicker.”

“Slower.”

“Quicker.”

“Neither slower nor quicker,” said Barbicane, wishing to make his two

friends agree; “for we float is space, and must no longer consider

specific weight.”

“Very well,” cried Michel Ardan in a decided voice; “then their remains

but one thing to do.”

“What is it?” asked Nicholl.

“Breakfast,” answered the cool, audacious Frenchman, who always brought

up this solution at the most difficult juncture.

In any case, if this operation had no influence on the projectile’s

course, it could at least be tried without inconvenience, and even with

success from a stomachic point of view. Certainly Michel had none but

good ideas.

They breakfasted then at two in the morning; the hour mattered little.

Michel served his usual repast, crowned by a glorious bottle drawn from

his private cellar. If ideas did not crowd on their brains, we must

despair of the Chambertin of 1853. The repast finished, observation

began again. Around the projectile, at an invariable distance, were the

objects which had been thrown out. Evidently, in its translatory motion

round the moon, it had not passed through any atmosphere, for the

specific weight of these different objects would have checked their

relative speed.

On the side of the terrestrial sphere nothing was to be seen. The earth

was but a day old, having been new the night before at twelve; and two

days must elapse before its crescent, freed from the solar rays, would

serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in its rotary movement each of

its points after twenty-four hours repasses the same lunar meridian.

On the moon’s side the sight was different; the orb shone in all her

splendor amid innumerable constellations, whose purity could not be

troubled by her rays. On the disc, the plains were already returning to

the dark tint which is seen from the earth. The other part of the

nimbus remained brilliant, and in the midst of this general brilliancy

Tycho shone prominently like a sun.

Barbicane had no means of estimating the projectile’s speed, but

reasoning showed that it must uniformly decrease, according to the laws

of mechanical reasoning. Having admitted that the projectile was

describing an orbit around the moon, this orbit must necessarily be

elliptical; science proves that it must be so. No motive body

circulating round an attracting body fails in this law. Every orbit

described in space is elliptical. And why should the projectile of the

Gun Club escape this natural arrangement? In elliptical orbits, the

attracting body always occupies one of the foci; so that at one moment

the satellite is nearer, and at another farther from the orb around

which it gravitates. When the earth is nearest the sun she is in her

perihelion; and in her aphelion at the farthest point. Speaking of the

moon, she is nearest to the earth in her perigee, and farthest from it

in her apogee. To use analogous expressions, with which the

astronomers’ language is enriched, if the projectile remains as a

satellite of the moon, we must say that it is in its “aposelene” at its

farthest point, and in its “periselene” at its nearest. In the latter

case, the projectile would attain its maximum of speed; and in the

former its minimum. It was evidently moving toward its aposelenitical

point; and Barbicane had reason to think that its speed would decrease

up to this point, and then increase by degrees as it neared the moon.

This speed would even become _nil_, if this point joined that of equal

attraction. Barbicane studied the consequences of these different

situations, and thinking what inference he could draw from them, when

he was roughly disturbed by a cry from Michel Ardan.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I must admit we are down-right simpletons!”

“I do not say we are not,” replied Barbicane; “but why?”

“Because we have a very simple means of checking this speed which is

bearing us from the moon, and we do not use it!”

“And what is the means?”

“To use the recoil contained in our rockets.”

“Done!” said Nicholl.

“We have not used this force yet,” said Barbicane, “it is true, but we

will do so.”

“When?” asked Michel.

“When the time comes. Observe, my friends, that in the position

occupied by the projectile, an oblique position with regard to the

lunar disc, our rockets, in slightly altering its direction, might turn

it from the moon instead of drawing it nearer?”

“Just so,” replied Michel.

“Let us wait, then. By some inexplicable influence, the projectile is

turning its base toward the earth. It is probable that at the point of

equal attraction, its conical cap will be directed rigidly toward the

moon; at that moment we may hope that its speed will be _nil_; then

will be the moment to act, and with the influence of our rockets we may

perhaps provoke a fall directly on the surface of the lunar disc.”

“Bravo!” said Michel. “What we did not do, what we could not do on our

first passage at the dead point, because the projectile was then

endowed with too great a speed.”

“Very well reasoned,” said Nicholl.

“Let us wait patiently,” continued Barbicane. “Putting every chance on

our side, and after having so much despaired, I may say I think we

shall gain our end.”

This conclusion was a signal for Michel Ardan’s hips and hurrahs. And

none of the audacious boobies remembered the question that they

themselves had solved in the negative. No! the moon is not inhabited;

no! the moon is probably not habitable. And yet they were going to try

everything to reach her.

One single question remained to be solved. At what precise moment the

projectile would reach the point of equal attraction, on which the

travelers must play their last card. In order to calculate this to

within a few seconds, Barbicane had only to refer to his notes, and to

reckon the different heights taken on the lunar parallels. Thus the

time necessary to travel over the distance between the dead point and

the south pole would be equal to the distance separating the north pole

from the dead point. The hours representing the time traveled over were

carefully noted, and the calculation was easy. Barbicane found that

this point would be reached at one in the morning on the night of the

7th-8th of December. So that, if nothing interfered with its course, it

would reach the given point in twenty-two hours.

The rockets had primarily been placed to check the fall of the

projectile upon the moon, and now they were going to employ them for a

directly contrary purpose. In any case they were ready, and they had

only to wait for the moment to set fire to them.

“Since there is nothing else to be done,” said Nicholl, “I make a

proposition.”

“What is it?” asked Barbicane.

“I propose to go to sleep.”

“What a motion!” exclaimed Michel Ardan.

“It is forty hours since we closed our eyes,” said Nicholl. “Some hours

of sleep will restore our strength.”

“Never,” interrupted Michel.

“Well,” continued Nicholl, “every one to his taste; I shall go to

sleep.” And stretching himself on the divan, he soon snored like a

forty-eight pounder.

“That Nicholl has a good deal of sense,” said Barbicane; “presently I

shall follow his example.” Some moments after his continued bass

supported the captain’s baritone.

“Certainly,” said Michel Ardan, finding himself alone, “these practical

people have sometimes most opportune ideas.”

And with his long legs stretched out, and his great arms folded under

his head, Michel slept in his turn.

But this sleep could be neither peaceful nor lasting, the minds of

these three men were too much occupied, and some hours after, about

seven in the morning, all three were on foot at the same instant.

The projectile was still leaving the moon, and turning its conical part

more and more toward her.

An explicable phenomenon, but one which happily served Barbicane’s

ends.

Seventeen hours more, and the moment for action would have arrived.

The day seemed long. However bold the travelers might be, they were

greatly impressed by the approach of that moment which would decide

all—either precipitate their fall on to the moon, or forever chain them

in an immutable orbit. They counted the hours as they passed too slow

for their wish; Barbicane and Nicholl were obstinately plunged in their

calculations, Michel going and coming between the narrow walls, and

watching that impassive moon with a longing eye.

At times recollections of the earth crossed their minds. They saw once

more their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of all, J. T.

Maston. At that moment, the honorable secretary must be filling his

post on the Rocky Mountains. If he could see the projectile through the

glass of his gigantic telescope, what would he think? After seeing it

disappear behind the moon’s south pole, he would see them reappear by

the north pole! They must therefore be a satellite of a satellite! Had

J. T. Maston given this unexpected news to the world? Was this the

_denouement_ of this great enterprise?

But the day passed without incident. The terrestrial midnight arrived.

The 8th of December was beginning. One hour more, and the point of

equal attraction would be reached. What speed would then animate the

projectile? They could not estimate it. But no error could vitiate

Barbicane’s calculations. At one in the morning this speed ought to be

and would be _nil_.

Besides, another phenomenon would mark the projectile’s stopping-point

on the neutral line. At that spot the two attractions, lunar and

terrestrial, would be annulled. Objects would “weigh” no more. This

singular fact, which had surprised Barbicane and his companions so much

in going, would be repeated on their return under the very same

conditions. At this precise moment they must act.

Already the projectile’s conical top was sensibly turned toward the

lunar disc, presented in such a way as to utilize the whole of the

recoil produced by the pressure of the rocket apparatus. The chances

were in favor of the travelers. If its speed was utterly annulled on

this dead point, a decided movement toward the moon would suffice,

however slight, to determine its fall.

“Five minutes to one,” said Nicholl.

“All is ready,” replied Michel Ardan, directing a lighted match to the

flame of the gas.

“Wait!” said Barbicane, holding his chronometer in his hand.

At that moment weight had no effect. The travelers felt in themselves

the entire disappearance of it. They were very near the neutral point,

if they did not touch it.

“One o’clock,” said Barbicane.

Michel Ardan applied the lighted match to a train in communication with

the rockets. No detonation was heard in the inside, for there was no

air. But, through the scuttles, Barbicane saw a prolonged smoke, the

flames of which were immediately extinguished.

The projectile sustained a certain shock, which was sensibly felt in

the interior.

The three friends looked and listened without speaking, and scarcely

breathing. One might have heard the beating of their hearts amid this

perfect silence.

“Are we falling?” asked Michel Ardan, at length.

“No,” said Nicholl, “since the bottom of the projectile is not turning

to the lunar disc!”

At this moment, Barbicane, quitting his scuttle, turned to his two

companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, and his

lips contracted.

“We are falling!” said he.

“Ah!” cried Michel Ardan, “on to the moon?”

“On to the earth!”

“The devil!” exclaimed Michel Ardan, adding philosophically, “well,

when we came into this projectile we were very doubtful as to the ease

with which we should get out of it!”

And now this fearful fall had begun. The speed retained had borne the

projectile beyond the dead point. The explosion of the rockets could

not divert its course. This speed in going had carried it over the

neutral line, and in returning had done the same thing. The laws of

physics condemned it _to pass through every point which it had already

gone through_. It was a terrible fall, from a height of 160,000 miles,

and no springs to break it. According to the laws of gunnery, the

projectile must strike the earth with a speed equal to that with which

it left the mouth of the Columbiad, a speed of 16,000 yards in the last

second.

But to give some figures of comparison, it has been reckoned that an

object thrown from the top of the towers of Notre Dame, the height of

which is only 200 feet, will arrive on the pavement at a speed of 240

miles per hour. Here the projectile must strike the earth with a speed

of 115,200 miles per hour.

“We are lost!” said Michel coolly.

“Very well! if we die,” answered Barbicane, with a sort of religious

enthusiasm, “the results of our travels will be magnificently spread.

It is His own secret that God will tell us! In the other life the soul

will want to know nothing, either of machines or engines! It will be

identified with eternal wisdom!”

“In fact,” interrupted Michel Ardan, “the whole of the other world may

well console us for the loss of that inferior orb called the moon!”

Barbicane crossed his arms on his breast, with a motion of sublime

resignation, saying at the same time:

“The will of heaven be done!”

CHAPTER XX.

THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA

Well, lieutenant, and our soundings?”

“I think, sir, that the operation is nearing its completion,” replied

Lieutenant Bronsfield. “But who would have thought of finding such a

depth so near in shore, and only 200 miles from the American coast?”

“Certainly, Bronsfield, there is a great depression,” said Captain

Blomsberry. “In this spot there is a submarine valley worn by

Humboldt’s current, which skirts the coast of America as far as the

Straits of Magellan.”

“These great depths,” continued the lieutenant, “are not favorable for

laying telegraphic cables. A level bottom, like that supporting the

American cable between Valentia and Newfoundland, is much better.”

“I agree with you, Bronsfield. With your permission, lieutenant, where

are we now?”

“Sir, at this moment we have 3,508 fathoms of line out, and the ball

which draws the sounding lead has not yet touched the bottom; for if

so, it would have come up of itself.”

“Brook’s apparatus is very ingenious,” said Captain Blomsberry; “it

gives us very exact soundings.”

“Touch!” cried at this moment one of the men at the forewheel, who was

superintending the operation.

The captain and the lieutenant mounted the quarterdeck.

“What depth have we?” asked the captain.

“Three thousand six hundred and twenty-seven fathoms,” replied the

lieutenant, entering it in his notebook.

“Well, Bronsfield,” said the captain, “I will take down the result. Now

haul in the sounding line. It will be the work of some hours. In that

time the engineer can light the furnaces, and we shall be ready to

start as soon as you have finished. It is ten o’clock, and with your

permission, lieutenant, I will turn in.”

“Do so, sir; do so!” replied the lieutenant obligingly.

The captain of the Susquehanna, as brave a man as need be, and the

humble servant of his officers, returned to his cabin, took a

brandy-grog, which earned for the steward no end of praise, and turned

in, not without having complimented his servant upon his making beds,

and slept a peaceful sleep.

It was then ten at night. The eleventh day of the month of December was

drawing to a close in a magnificent night.

The Susquehanna, a corvette of 500 horse-power, of the United States

navy, was occupied in taking soundings in the Pacific Ocean about 200

miles off the American coast, following that long peninsula which

stretches down the coast of Mexico.

The wind had dropped by degrees. There was no disturbance in the air.

The pennant hung motionless from the maintop-gallant- mast truck.

Captain Jonathan Blomsberry (cousin-german of Colonel Blomsberry, one

of the most ardent supporters of the Gun Club, who had married an aunt

of the captain and daughter of an honorable Kentucky merchant)—Captain

Blomsberry could not have wished for finer weather in which to bring to

a close his delicate operations of sounding. His corvette had not even

felt the great tempest, which by sweeping away the groups of clouds on

the Rocky Mountains, had allowed them to observe the course of the

famous projectile.

Everything went well, and with all the fervor of a Presbyterian, he did

not forget to thank heaven for it. The series of soundings taken by the

Susquehanna, had for its aim the finding of a favorable spot for the

laying of a submarine cable to connect the Hawaiian Islands with the

coast of America.

It was a great undertaking, due to the instigation of a powerful

company. Its managing director, the intelligent Cyrus Field, purposed

even covering all the islands of Oceanica with a vast electrical

network, an immense enterprise, and one worthy of American genius.

To the corvette Susquehanna had been confided the first operations of

sounding. It was on the night of the 11th-12th of December, she was in

exactly 27° 7′ north latitude, and 41° 37′ west longitude, on the

meridian of Washington.

The moon, then in her last quarter, was beginning to rise above the

horizon.

After the departure of Captain Blomsberry, the lieutenant and some

officers were standing together on the poop. On the appearance of the

moon, their thoughts turned to that orb which the eyes of a whole

hemisphere were contemplating. The best naval glasses could not have

discovered the projectile wandering around its hemisphere, and yet all

were pointed toward that brilliant disc which millions of eyes were

looking at at the same moment.

“They have been gone ten days,” said Lieutenant Bronsfield at last.

“What has become of them?”

“They have arrived, lieutenant,” exclaimed a young midshipman, “and

they are doing what all travelers do when they arrive in a new country,

taking a walk!”

“Oh! I am sure of that, if you tell me so, my young friend,” said

Lieutenant Bronsfield, smiling.

“But,” continued another officer, “their arrival cannot be doubted. The

projectile was to reach the moon when full on the 5th at midnight. We

are now at the 11th of December, which makes six days. And in six times

twenty-four hours, without darkness, one would have time to settle

comfortably. I fancy I see my brave countrymen encamped at the bottom

of some valley, on the borders of a Selenite stream, near a projectile

half-buried by its fall amid volcanic rubbish, Captain Nicholl

beginning his leveling operations, President Barbicane writing out his

notes, and Michel Ardan embalming the lunar solitudes with the perfume

of his—”

“Yes! it must be so, it is so!” exclaimed the young midshipman, worked

up to a pitch of enthusiasm by this ideal description of his superior

officer.

“I should like to believe it,” replied the lieutenant, who was quite

unmoved. “Unfortunately direct news from the lunar world is still

wanting.”

“Beg pardon, lieutenant,” said the midshipman, “but cannot President

Barbicane write?”

A burst of laughter greeted this answer.

“No letters!” continued the young man quickly. “The postal

administration has something to see to there.”

“Might it not be the telegraphic service that is at fault?” asked one

of the officers ironically.

“Not necessarily,” replied the midshipman, not at all confused. “But it

is very easy to set up a graphic communication with the earth.”

“And how?”

“By means of the telescope at Long’s Peak. You know it brings the moon

to within four miles of the Rocky Mountains, and that it shows objects

on its surface of only nine feet in diameter. Very well; let our

industrious friends construct a giant alphabet; let them write words

three fathoms long, and sentences three miles long, and then they can

send us news of themselves.”

The young midshipman, who had a certain amount of imagination, was

loudly applauded; Lieutenant Bronsfield allowing that the idea was

possible, but observing that if by these means they could receive news

from the lunar world they could not send any from the terrestrial,

unless the Selenites had instruments fit for taking distant

observations at their disposal.

“Evidently,” said one of the officers; “but what has become of the

travelers? what they have done, what they have seen, that above all

must interest us. Besides, if the experiment has succeeded (which I do

not doubt), they will try it again. The Columbiad is still sunk in the

soil of Florida. It is now only a question of powder and shot; and

every time the moon is at her zenith a cargo of visitors may be sent to

her.”

“It is clear,” replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, “that J. T. Maston will

one day join his friends.”

“If he will have me,” cried the midshipman, “I am ready!”

“Oh! volunteers will not be wanting,” answered Bronsfield; “and if it

were allowed, half of the earth’s inhabitants would emigrate to the

moon!”

This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was kept up

until nearly one in the morning. We cannot say what blundering systems

were broached, what inconsistent theories advanced by these bold

spirits. Since Barbicane’s attempt, nothing seemed impossible to the

Americans. They had already designed an expedition, not only of

savants, but of a whole colony toward the Selenite borders, and a

complete army, consisting of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, to

conquer the lunar world.

At one in the morning, the hauling in of the sounding-line was not yet

completed; 1,670 fathoms were still out, which would entail some hours’

work. According to the commander’s orders, the fires had been lighted,

and steam was being got up. The Susquehanna could have started that

very instant.

At that moment (it was seventeen minutes past one in the morning)

Lieutenant Bronsfield was preparing to leave the watch and return to

his cabin, when his attention was attracted by a distant hissing noise.

His comrades and himself first thought that this hissing was caused by

the letting off of steam; but lifting their heads, they found that the

noise was produced in the highest regions of the air. They had not time

to question each other before the hissing became frightfully intense,

and suddenly there appeared to their dazzled eyes an enormous meteor,

ignited by the rapidity of its course and its friction through the

atmospheric strata.

This fiery mass grew larger to their eyes, and fell, with the noise of

thunder, upon the bowsprit, which it smashed close to the stem, and

buried itself in the waves with a deafening roar!

A few feet nearer, and the Susquehanna would have foundered with all on

board!

At this instant Captain Blomsberry appeared, half-dressed, and rushing

on to the forecastle-deck, whither all the officers had hurried,

exclaimed, “With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?”

And the midshipman, making himself as it were the echo of the body,

cried, “Commander, it is ‘they’ come back again!”

CHAPTER XXI.

J. T. MASTON RECALLED

“It is ‘they’ come back again!” the young midshipman had said, and

every one had understood him. No one doubted but that the meteor was

the projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travelers which it enclosed,

opinions were divided regarding their fate.

“They are dead!” said one.

“They are alive!” said another; “the crater is deep, and the shock was

deadened.”

“But they must have wanted air,” continued a third speaker; “they must

have died of suffocation.”

“Burned!” replied a fourth; “the projectile was nothing but an

incandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere.”

“What does it matter!” they exclaimed unanimously; “living or dead, we

must pull them out!”

But Captain Blomsberry had assembled his officers, and “with their

permission,” was holding a council. They must decide upon something to

be done immediately. The more hasty ones were for fishing up the

projectile. A difficult operation, though not an impossible one. But

the corvette had no proper machinery, which must be both fixed and

powerful; so it was resolved that they should put in at the nearest

port, and give information to the Gun Club of the projectile’s fall.

This determination was unanimous. The choice of the port had to be

discussed. The neighboring coast had no anchorage on 27° latitude.

Higher up, above the peninsula of Monterey, stands the important town

from which it takes its name; but, seated on the borders of a perfect

desert, it was not connected with the interior by a network of

telegraphic wires, and electricity alone could spread these important

news fast enough.

Some degrees above opened the bay of San Francisco. Through the capital

of the gold country communication would be easy with the heart of the

Union. And in less than two days the Susquehanna, by putting on high

pressure, could arrive in that port. She must therefore start at once.

The fires were made up; they could set off immediately. Two thousand

fathoms of line were still out, which Captain Blomsberry, not wishing

to lose precious time in hauling in, resolved to cut.

“we will fasten the end to a buoy,” said he, “and that buoy will show

us the exact spot where the projectile fell.”

“Besides,” replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, “we have our situation

exact—27° 7′ north latitude and 41° 37′ west longitude.”

“Well, Mr. Bronsfield,” replied the captain, “now, with your

permission, we will have the line cut.”

A strong buoy, strengthened by a couple of spars, was thrown into the

ocean. The end of the rope was carefully lashed to it; and, left solely

to the rise and fall of the billows, the buoy would not sensibly

deviate from the spot.

At this moment the engineer sent to inform the captain that steam was

up and they could start, for which agreeable communication the captain

thanked him. The course was then given north-northeast, and the

corvette, wearing, steered at full steam direct for San Francisco. It

was three in the morning.

Four hundred and fifty miles to cross; it was nothing for a good vessel

like the Susquehanna. In thirty-six hours she had covered that

distance; and on the 14th of December, at twenty-seven minutes past one

at night, she entered the bay of San Francisco.

At the sight of a ship of the national navy arriving at full speed,

with her bowsprit broken, public curiosity was greatly roused. A dense

crowd soon assembled on the quay, waiting for them to disembark.

After casting anchor, Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant Bronsfield

entered an eight-pared cutter, which soon brought them to land.

They jumped on to the quay.

“The telegraph?” they asked, without answering one of the thousand

questions addressed to them.

The officer of the port conducted them to the telegraph office through

a concourse of spectators. Blomsberry and Bronsfield entered, while the

crowd crushed each other at the door.

Some minutes later a fourfold telegram was sent out—the first to the

Naval Secretary at Washington; the second to the vice-president of the

Gun Club, Baltimore; the third to the Hon. J. T. Maston, Long’s Peak,

Rocky Mountains; and the fourth to the sub-director of the Cambridge

Observatory, Massachusetts.

It was worded as follows:

In 20° 7′ north latitude, and 41° 37′ west longitude, on the 12th of

December, at seventeen minutes past one in the morning, the projectile

of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific. Send instructions.—BLOMSBERRY,

Commander Susquehanna.

Five minutes afterward the whole town of San Francisco learned the

news. Before six in the evening the different States of the Union had

heard the great catastrophe; and after midnight, by the cable, the

whole of Europe knew the result of the great American experiment. We

will not attempt to picture the effect produced on the entire world by

that unexpected denouement.

On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed to the

Susquehanna to wait in the bay of San Francisco without extinguishing

her fires. Day and night she must be ready to put to sea.

The Cambridge observatory called a special meeting; and, with that

composure which distinguishes learned bodies in general, peacefully

discussed the scientific bearings of the question. At the Gun Club

there was an explosion. All the gunners were assembled. Vice-President

the Hon. Wilcome was in the act of reading the premature dispatch, in

which J. T. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just

been seen in the gigantic reflector of Long’s Peak, and also that it

was held by lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under

satellite to the lunar world.

We know the truth on that point.

But on the arrival of Blomsberry’s dispatch, so decidely contradicting

J. T. Maston’s telegram, two parties were formed in the bosom of the

Gun Club. On one side were those who admitted the fall of the

projectile, and consequently the return of the travelers; on the other,

those who believed in the observations of Long’s Peak, concluded that

the commander of the Susquehanna had made a mistake. To the latter the

pretended projectile was nothing but a meteor! nothing but a meteor, a

shooting globe, which in its fall had smashed the bows of the corvette.

It was difficult to answer this argument, for the speed with which it

was animated must have made observation very difficult. The commander

of the Susquehanna and her officers might have made a mistake in all

good faith; one argument however, was in their favor, namely, that if

the projectile had fallen on the earth, its place of meeting with the

terrestrial globe could only take place on this 27° north latitude, and

(taking into consideration the time that had elapsed, and the rotary

motion of the earth) between the 41° and the 42° of west longitude. In

any case, it was decided in the Gun Club that Blomsberry brothers,

Bilsby, and Major Elphinstone should go straight to San Francisco, and

consult as to the means of raising the projectile from the depths of

the ocean.

These devoted men set off at once; and the railroad, which will soon

cross the whole of Central America, took them as far as St. Louis,

where the swift mail-coaches awaited them. Almost at the same moment in

which the Secretary of Marine, the vice-president of the Gun Club, and

the sub-director of the Observatory received the dispatch from San

Francisco, the Honorable J. T. Maston was undergoing the greatest

excitement he had ever experienced in his life, an excitement which

even the bursting of his pet gun, which had more than once nearly cost

him his life, had not caused him. We may remember that the secretary of

the Gun Club had started soon after the projectile (and almost as

quickly) for the station on Long’s Peak, in the Rocky Mountains, J.

Belfast, director of the Cambridge Observatory, accompanying him.

Arrived there, the two friends had installed themselves at once, never

quitting the summit of their enormous telescope. We know that this

gigantic instrument had been set up according to the reflecting system,

called by the English “front view.” This arrangement subjected all

objects to but one reflection, making the view consequently much

clearer; the result was that, when they were taking observation, J. T.

Maston and Belfast were placed in the _upper_ part of the instrument

and not in the lower, which they reached by a circular staircase, a

masterpiece of lightness, while below them opened a metal well

terminated by the metallic mirror, which measured two hundred and

eighty feet in depth.

It was on a narrow platform placed above the telescope that the two

savants passed their existence, execrating the day which hid the moon

from their eyes, and the clouds which obstinately veiled her during the

night.

What, then, was their delight when, after some days of waiting, on the

night of the 5th of December, they saw the vehicle which was bearing

their friends into space! To this delight succeeded a great deception,

when, trusting to a cursory observation, they launched their first

telegram to the world, erroneously affirming that the projectile had

become a satellite of the moon, gravitating in an immutable orbit.

From that moment it had never shown itself to their eyes—a

disappearance all the more easily explained, as it was then passing

behind the moon’s invisible disc; but when it was time for it to

reappear on the visible disc, one may imagine the impatience of the

fuming J. T. Maston and his not less impatient companion. Each minute

of the night they thought they saw the projectile once more, and they

did not see it. Hence constant discussions and violent disputes between

them, Belfast affirming that the projectile could not be seen, J. T.

Maston maintaining that “it had put his eyes out.”

“It is the projectile!” repeated J. T. Maston.

“No,” answered Belfast; “it is an avalanche detached from a lunar

mountain.”

“Well, we shall see it to-morrow.”

“No, we shall not see it any more. It is carried into space.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

And at these moments, when contradictions rained like hail, the

well-known irritability of the secretary of the Gun Club constituted a

permanent danger for the Honorable Belfast. The existence of these two

together would soon have become impossible; but an unforseen event cut

short their everlasting discussions.

During the night, from the 14th to the 15th of December, the two

irreconcilable friends were busy observing the lunar disc, J. T. Maston

abusing the learned Belfast as usual, who was by his side; the

secretary of the Gun Club maintaining for the thousandth time that he

had just seen the projectile, and adding that he could see Michel

Ardan’s face looking through one of the scuttles, at the same time

enforcing his argument by a series of gestures which his formidable

hook rendered very unpleasant.

At this moment Belfast’s servant appeared on the platform (it was ten

at night) and gave him a dispatch. It was the commander of the

Susquehanna’s telegram.

Belfast tore the envelope and read, and uttered a cry.

“What!” said J. T. Maston.

“The projectile!”

“Well!”

“Has fallen to the earth!”

Another cry, this time a perfect howl, answered him. He turned toward

J. T. Maston. The unfortunate man, imprudently leaning over the metal

tube, had disappeared in the immense telescope. A fall of two hundred

and eighty feet! Belfast, dismayed, rushed to the orifice of the

reflector.

He breathed. J. T. Maston, caught by his metal hook, was holding on by

one of the rings which bound the telescope together, uttering fearful

cries.

Belfast called. Help was brought, tackle was let down, and they hoisted

up, not without some trouble, the imprudent secretary of the Gun Club.

He reappeared at the upper orifice without hurt.

“Ah!” said he, “if I had broken the mirror?”

“You would have paid for it,” replied Belfast severely.

“And that cursed projectile has fallen?” asked J. T. Maston.

“Into the Pacific!”

“Let us go!”

A quarter of an hour after the two savants were descending the

declivity of the Rocky Mountains; and two days after, at the same time

as their friends of the Gun Club, they arrived at San Francisco, having

killed five horses on the road.

Elphinstone, the brothers Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed toward them on

their arrival.

“What shall we do?” they exclaimed.

“Fish up the projectile,” replied J. T. Maston, “and the sooner the

better.”

CHAPTER XXII.

RECOVERED FROM THE SEA

The spot where the projectile sank under the waves was exactly known;

but the machinery to grasp it and bring it to the surface of the ocean

was still wanting. It must first be invented, then made. American

engineers could not be troubled with such trifles. The grappling-irons

once fixed, by their help they were sure to raise it in spite of its

weight, which was lessened by the density of the liquid in which it was

plunged.

But fishing-up the projectile was not the only thing to be thought of.

They must act promptly in the interest of the travelers. No one doubted

that they were still living.

“Yes,” repeated J. T. Maston incessantly, whose confidence gained over

everybody, “our friends are clever people, and they cannot have fallen

like simpletons. They are alive, quite alive; but we must make haste if

we wish to find them so. Food and water do not trouble me; they have

enough for a long while. But air, air, that is what they will soon

want; so quick, quick!”

And they did go quick. They fitted up the Susquehanna for her new

destination. Her powerful machinery was brought to bear upon the

hauling-chains. The aluminum projectile only weighed 19,250 pounds, a

weight very inferior to that of the transatlantic cable which had been

drawn up under similar conditions. The only difficulty was in fishing

up a cylindro-conical projectile, the walls of which were so smooth as

to offer no hold for the hooks. On that account Engineer Murchison

hastened to San Francisco, and had some enormous grappling-irons fixed

on an automatic system, which would never let the projectile go if it

once succeeded in seizing it in its powerful claws. Diving-dresses were

also prepared, which through this impervious covering allowed the

divers to observe the bottom of the sea. He also had put on board an

apparatus of compressed air very cleverly designed. There were perfect

chambers pierced with scuttles, which, with water let into certain

compartments, could draw it down into great depths. These apparatuses

were at San Francisco, where they had been used in the construction of

a submarine breakwater; and very fortunately it was so, for there was

no time to construct any. But in spite of the perfection of the

machinery, in spite of the ingenuity of the savants entrusted with the

use of them, the success of the operation was far from being certain.

How great were the chances against them, the projectile being 20,000

feet under the water! And if even it was brought to the surface, how

would the travelers have borne the terrible shock which 20,000 feet of

water had perhaps not sufficiently broken? At any rate they must act

quickly. J. T. Maston hurried the workmen day and night. He was ready

to don the diving-dress himself, or try the air apparatus, in order to

reconnoiter the situation of his courageous friends.

But in spite of all the diligence displayed in preparing the different

engines, in spite of the considerable sum placed at the disposal of the

Gun Club by the Government of the Union, five long days (five

centuries!) elapsed before the preparations were complete. During this

time public opinion was excited to the highest pitch. Telegrams were

exchanged incessantly throughout the entire world by means of wires and

electric cables. The saving of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan was

an international affair. Every one who had subscribed to the Gun Club

was directly interested in the welfare of the travelers.

At length the hauling-chains, the air-chambers, and the automatic

grappling-irons were put on board. J. T. Maston, Engineer Murchison,

and the delegates of the Gun Club, were already in their cabins. They

had but to start, which they did on the 21st of December, at eight

o’clock at night, the corvette meeting with a beautiful sea, a

northeasterly wind, and rather sharp cold. The whole population of San

Francisco was gathered on the quay, greatly excited but silent,

reserving their hurrahs for the return. Steam was fully up, and the

screw of the Susquehanna carried them briskly out of the bay.

It is needless to relate the conversations on board between the

officers, sailors, and passengers. All these men had but one thought.

All these hearts beat under the same emotion. While they were hastening

to help them, what were Barbicane and his companions doing? What had

become of them? Were they able to attempt any bold maneuver to regain

their liberty? None could say. The truth is that every attempt must

have failed! Immersed nearly four miles under the ocean, this metal

prison defied every effort of its prisoners.

On the 23rd inst., at eight in the morning, after a rapid passage, the

Susquehanna was due at the fatal spot. They must wait till twelve to

take the reckoning exactly. The buoy to which the sounding line had

been lashed had not yet been recognized.

At twelve, Captain Blomsberry, assisted by his officers who

superintended the observations, took the reckoning in the presence of

the delegates of the Gun Club. Then there was a moment of anxiety. Her

position decided, the Susquehanna was found to be some minutes westward

of the spot where the projectile had disappeared beneath the waves.

The ship’s course was then changed so as to reach this exact point.

At forty-seven minutes past twelve they reached the buoy; it was in

perfect condition, and must have shifted but little.

“At last!” exclaimed J. T. Maston.

“Shall we begin?” asked Captain Blomsberry.

“Without losing a second.”

Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette almost completely

motionless. Before trying to seize the projectile, Engineer Murchison

wanted to find its exact position at the bottom of the ocean. The

submarine apparatus destined for this expedition was supplied with air.

The working of these engines was not without danger, for at 20,000 feet

below the surface of the water, and under such great pressure, they

were exposed to fracture, the consequences of which would be dreadful.

J. T. Maston, the brothers Blomsberry, and Engineer Murchison, without

heeding these dangers, took their places in the air-chamber. The

commander, posted on his bridge, superintended the operation, ready to

stop or haul in the chains on the slightest signal. The screw had been

shipped, and the whole power of the machinery collected on the capstan

would have quickly drawn the apparatus on board. The descent began at

twenty-five minutes past one at night, and the chamber, drawn under by

the reservoirs full of water, disappeared from the surface of the

ocean.

The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was now divided

between the prisoners in the projectile and the prisoners in the

submarine apparatus. As to the latter, they forgot themselves, and,

glued to the windows of the scuttles, attentively watched the liquid

mass through which they were passing.

The descent was rapid. At seventeen minutes past two, J. T. Maston and

his companions had reached the bottom of the Pacific; but they saw

nothing but an arid desert, no longer animated by either fauna or

flora. By the light of their lamps, furnished with powerful reflectors,

they could see the dark beds of the ocean for a considerable extent of

view, but the projectile was nowhere to be seen.

The impatience of these bold divers cannot be described, and having an

electrical communication with the corvette, they made a signal already

agreed upon, and for the space of a mile the Susquehanna moved their

chamber along some yards above the bottom.

Thus they explored the whole submarine plain, deceived at every turn by

optical illusions which almost broke their hearts. Here a rock, there a

projection from the ground, seemed to be the much-sought-for

projectile; but their mistake was soon discovered, and then they were

in despair.

“But where are they? where are they?” cried J. T. Maston. And the poor

man called loudly upon Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan, as if his

unfortunate friends could either hear or answer him through such an

impenetrable medium! The search continued under these conditions until

the vitiated air compelled the divers to ascend.

The hauling in began about six in the evening, and was not ended before

midnight.

“To-morrow,” said J. T. Maston, as he set foot on the bridge of the

corvette.

“Yes,” answered Captain Blomsberry.

“And on another spot?”

“Yes.”

J. T. Maston did not doubt of their final success, but his companions,

no longer upheld by the excitement of the first hours, understood all

the difficulty of the enterprise. What seemed easy at San Francisco,

seemed here in the wide ocean almost impossible. The chances of success

diminished in rapid proportion; and it was from chance alone that the

meeting with the projectile might be expected.

The next day, the 24th, in spite of the fatigue of the previous day,

the operation was renewed. The corvette advanced some minutes to

westward, and the apparatus, provided with air, bore the same explorers

to the depths of the ocean.

The whole day passed in fruitless research; the bed of the sea was a

desert. The 25th brought no other result, nor the 26th.

It was disheartening. They thought of those unfortunates shut up in the

projectile for twenty-six days. Perhaps at that moment they were

experiencing the first approach of suffocation; that is, if they had

escaped the dangers of their fall. The air was spent, and doubtless

with the air all their _morale_.

“The air, possibly,” answered J. T. Maston resolutely, “but their

_morale_ never!”

On the 28th, after two more days of search, all hope was gone. This

projectile was but an atom in the immensity of the ocean. They must

give up all idea of finding it.

But J. T. Maston would not hear of going away. He would not abandon the

place without at least discovering the tomb of his friends. But

Commander Blomsberry could no longer persist, and in spite of the

exclamations of the worthy secretary, was obliged to give the order to

sail.

On the 29th of December, at nine A.M., the Susquehanna, heading

northeast, resumed her course to the bay of San Francisco.

It was ten in the morning; the corvette was under half-steam, as it was

regretting to leave the spot where the catastrophe had taken place,

when a sailor, perched on the main-top-gallant crosstrees, watching the

sea, cried suddenly:

“A buoy on the lee bow!”

The officers looked in the direction indicated, and by the help of

their glasses saw that the object signalled had the appearance of one

of those buoys which are used to mark the passages of bays or rivers.

But, singularly to say, a flag floating on the wind surmounted its

cone, which emerged five or six feet out of water. This buoy shone

under the rays of the sun as if it had been made of plates of silver.

Commander Blomsberry, J. T. Maston, and the delegates of the Gun Club

were mounted on the bridge, examining this object straying at random on

the waves.

All looked with feverish anxiety, but in silence. None dared give

expression to the thoughts which came to the minds of all.

The corvette approached to within two cables’ lengths of the object.

A shudder ran through the whole crew. That flag was the American flag!

At this moment a perfect howling was heard; it was the brave J. T.

Maston who had just fallen all in a heap. Forgetting on the one hand

that his right arm had been replaced by an iron hook, and on the other

that a simple gutta-percha cap covered his brain-box, he had given

himself a formidable blow.

They hurried toward him, picked him up, restored him to life. And what

were his first words?

“Ah! trebly brutes! quadruply idiots! quintuply boobies that we are!”

“What is it?” exclaimed everyone around him.

“What is it?”

“Come, speak!”

“It is, simpletons,” howled the terrible secretary, “it is that the

projectile only weighs 19,250 pounds!”

“Well?”

“And that it displaces twenty-eight tons, or in other words 56,000

pounds, and that consequently _it floats_!”

Ah! what stress the worthy man had laid on the verb “float!” And it was

true! All, yes! all these savants had forgotten this fundamental law,

namely, that on account of its specific lightness, the projectile,

after having been drawn by its fall to the greatest depths of the

ocean, must naturally return to the surface. And now it was floating

quietly at the mercy of the waves.

The boats were put to sea. J. T. Maston and his friends had rushed into

them! Excitement was at its height! Every heart beat loudly while they

advanced to the projectile. What did it contain? Living or dead?

Living, yes! living, at least unless death had struck Barbicane and his

two friends since they had hoisted the flag. Profound silence reigned

on the boats. All were breathless. Eyes no longer saw. One of the

scuttles of the projectile was open. Some pieces of glass remained in

the frame, showing that it had been broken. This scuttle was actually

five feet above the water.

A boat came alongside, that of J. T. Maston, and J. T. Maston rushed to

the broken window.

At that moment they heard a clear and merry voice, the voice of Michel

Ardan, exclaiming in an accent of triumph:

“White all, Barbicane, white all!”

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, and Nicholl were playing at dominoes!

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE END

We may remember the intense sympathy which had accompanied the

travelers on their departure. If at the beginning of the enterprise

they had excited such emotion both in the old and new world, with what

enthusiasm would they be received on their return! The millions of

spectators which had beset the peninsula of Florida, would they not

rush to meet these sublime adventurers? Those legions of strangers,

hurrying from all parts of the globe toward the American shores, would

they leave the Union without having seen Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel

Ardan? No! and the ardent passion of the public was bound to respond

worthily to the greatness of the enterprise. Human creatures who had

left the terrestrial sphere, and returned after this strange voyage

into celestial space, could not fail to be received as the prophet

Elias would be if he came back to earth. To see them first, and then to

hear them, such was the universal longing.

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club,

returning without delay to Baltimore, were received with indescribable

enthusiasm. The notes of President Barbicane’s voyage were ready to be

given to the public. The New York _Herald_ bought the manuscript at a

price not yet known, but which must have been very high. Indeed, during

the publication of “A Journey to the Moon,” the sale of this paper

amounted to five millions of copies. Three days after the return of the

travelers to the earth, the slightest detail of their expedition was

known. There remained nothing more but to see the heroes of this

superhuman enterprise.

The expedition of Barbicane and his friends round the moon had enabled

them to correct the many admitted theories regarding the terrestrial

satellite. These savants had observed _de visu_, and under particular

circumstances. They knew what systems should be rejected, what retained

with regard to the formation of that orb, its origin, its habitability.

Its past, present, and future had even given up their last secrets. Who

could advance objections against conscientious observers, who at less

than twenty-four miles distance had marked that curious mountain of

Tycho, the strangest system of lunar orography? How answer those

savants whose sight had penetrated the abyss of Pluto’s circle? How

contradict those bold ones whom the chances of their enterprise had

borne over that invisible face of the disc, which no human eye until

then had ever seen? It was now their turn to impose some limit on that

selenographic science, which had reconstructed the lunar world as

Cuvier did the skeleton of a fossil, and say, “The moon _was_ this, a

habitable world, inhabited before the earth. The moon _is_ that, a

world uninhabitable, and now uninhabited.”

To celebrate the return of its most illustrious member and his two

companions, the Gun Club decided upon giving a banquet, but a banquet

worthy of the conquerors, worthy of the American people, and under such

conditions that all the inhabitants of the Union could directly take

part in it.

All the head lines of railroads in the States were joined by flying

rails; and on all the platforms, lined with the same flags, and

decorated with the same ornaments, were tables laid and all served

alike. At certain hours, successively calculated, marked by electric

clocks which beat the seconds at the same time, the population were

invited to take their places at the banquet tables. For four days, from

the 5th to the 9th of January, the trains were stopped as they are on

Sundays on the railways of the United States, and every road was open.

One engine only at full speed, drawing a triumphal carriage, had the

right of traveling for those four days on the railroads of the United

States.

The engine was manned by a driver and a stoker, and bore, by special

favor, the Hon. J. T. Maston, secretary of the Gun Club. The carriage

was reserved for President Barbicane, Colonel Nicholl, and Michel

Ardan. At the whistle of the driver, amid the hurrahs, and all the

admiring vociferations of the American language, the train left the

platform of Baltimore. It traveled at a speed of one hundred and sixty

miles in the hour. But what was this speed compared with that which had

carried the three heroes from the mouth of the Columbiad?

Thus they sped from one town to the other, finding whole populations at

table on their road, saluting them with the same acclamations,

lavishing the same bravos! They traveled in this way through the east

of the Union, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine,

and New Hampshire; the north and west by New York, Ohio, Michigan, and

Wisconsin; returning to the south by Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas,

Texas, and Louisiana; they went to the southeast by Alabama and

Florida, going up by Georgia and the Carolinas, visiting the center by

Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana, and, after quitting the

Washington station, re-entered Baltimore, where for four days one would

have thought that the United States of America were seated at one

immense banquet, saluting them simultaneously with the same hurrahs!

The apotheosis was worthy of these three heroes whom fable would have

placed in the rank of demigods.

And now will this attempt, unprecedented in the annals of travels, lead

to any practical result? Will direct communication with the moon ever

be established? Will they ever lay the foundation of a traveling

service through the solar world? Will they go from one planet to

another, from Jupiter to Mercury, and after awhile from one star to

another, from the Polar to Sirius? Will this means of locomotion allow

us to visit those suns which swarm in the firmament?

To such questions no answer can be given. But knowing the bold

ingenuity of the Anglo-Saxon race, no one would be astonished if the

Americans seek to make some use of President Barbicane’s attempt.

Thus, some time after the return of the travelers, the public received

with marked favor the announcement of a company, limited, with a

capital of a hundred million of dollars, divided into a hundred

thousand shares of a thousand dollars each, under the name of the

“National Company of Interstellary Communication.” President,

Barbicane; vice-president, Captain Nicholl; secretary, J. T. Maston;

director of movements, Michel Ardan.

And as it is part of the American temperament to foresee everything in

business, even failure, the Honorable Harry Trolloppe, judge

commissioner, and Francis Drayton, magistrate, were nominated

beforehand!

THE END.

******* Notes: Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” and “A Trip

Around It”

I originally intended to “correct” some of the numbers in the book. For

example, page 207 has “thirteenth” where “thirtieth” would be more

appropriate. Some of the densities and volumes and masses don’t match

up. The business with the wrong exhaust velocity of the gun is also a

bit confusing. The dates and times aren’t quite consistent throughout,

although they are close enough that Verne must have been working from a

time-line. For example, I think he has the time for the fall back to

earth exactly matching the time for the trip out. There are also

inconsistent spellings, for example “aluminum” and “aluminium”. Some of

these annoyed me, in the sense of disturbing my reading; since the

reader is reading for pleasure, the annoyance should be removed.

All cases of the British? spelling of aluminium have been changed to

the American spelling aluminum.

I decided that the correction project was going to be a lot of trouble,

and might be a perversion of the original work. I concentrated instead

on producing an accurate rendition of the text. However, if a French

speaker can find a French edition, it might be nice to see if the

translators introduced errors. The measurements seem to have been

converted from metric without regard for significant figures.

Occasional conversions are simply omitted, with “feet” inserted for

“meters” without fixing the numbers. These might be safely recomputed

without doing violence to the spirit of the original work. Whether one

should standardize the spelling of “aluminium” I don’t know.

“Aluminium” has a certain charm. I don’t know what American or English

usage was at the time. We might consider converting all the

temperatures to Fahrenheit. I suggest removing the page numbers,

undoing all the hyphenation, and repackaging the lines at a length of

(up to) 72 characters, with only occasional word breaks.

Page #s and a full reformating has been done. Line widow/orphans have

been painstakingly removed. Hypenated words at the end of lines have

been eliminated to the best of my judgement.

I think a table of units should be offered for the reader.

myriameter = 10 km

fathom = 6 feet; league ~ 3 miles, but don’t know French usage in 1865.

page 125 has perigee 86,410 leagues (French), or 238,833 miles <mean>

Would be nice to know the currency conversions of the day.

We may criticize Verne for his errors, but the remarkable thing is how

much he got right! I think this was the first engineering proposal for

space travel, using physics instead of magic. Verne deserves much of

the credit for inspiring the early rocket pioneers, and ultimately

today’s space program. As “literary” history, I note that Heinlein’s

“The Man Who Sold the Moon” borrows from it.

add conversion table for units. fathom, league, meter, mile, foot, C/F

contact publisher for translator information

is perihelium {sic} a real word? maybe substitute perihelion?

I have changed the one case of perihelium to the correct perihelion.

There’s an incorrect reference to Nov. 30 in the early part of book 2

to fix [I read it over and left it there. Close enough for fiction, but

I am sure they would have missed the moon by a lot.]

Dates were not fixed.

inconsistent spelling of Palliser, Palisser

This only occurs twice in the book, so both are left in.

pyroxyle sometimes with xile

‘yle’ ending was accepted by undisputed “majority rule”

aluminum and aluminium

The former accepted.

maybe 18000 instead of 17000 yards/sec?

30th degree of lunar latitude instead of 13th?

there seems to be an inconsistency in the title for book 2

Numbers, units, dates, times and math errors have NOT been changed.

Typographic conventions in the book:

The book uses ligatures for ff fi fl ffi ffl; I have simply spelled

these out.

Chapter N is in italics.

The chapter titles are in small caps.

The first word of each chapter has an oversize capital, and the rest of

the word is in small caps. If the first word is two letters or less,

the second word is also in small caps.

AM and PM are always in small caps, as A.M. or P.M.

All these have been changed to PG standards.

My typographic conventions:

There are a few lines longer than 80 character, usually because I have

inserted a {sic phrase} in the line. I am using % as a line-break

character in these cases; the % and the following new-line should be

deleted. {correction} I have indicated some candidates for correction

in braces.

All these were appreciated! and either corrected or ignored.

_italics_ are marked with underbars

These are left in for the next proofer to turn into CAPS for PG.

#SMALL CAPS# are enclosed in hash-marks

#

$ae $’e dollar-sign preceeds ligatures and accented characters.

The accent follows the $ and precedes the letter. I’ve tried to get ’

and ‘ (as accents) right.

I have used : as an accent marker for umlaut.

All are removed.

I’ve used ‘ and ’ to enclose (recursive) quotes. Ascii has no provision

for distinguishable open and close doublequotes.

The book uses ligatures for ff fi fl ffi ffl; I have simply spelled

these out.

L for British Pound.

All these conventions (except the circumflex) have been accepted.

bold indicates a different typeface

Removed (only one case) and probably a printers error?

δ indicates a non-ascii character, here the greek letter delta left in.