... For obvious reasons, those who possessed the secret of the
Apergy [1] had never dreamed of applying it in the manner I proposed.
It had seemed to them little more than a curious secret of nature,
perhaps hardly so much, since the existence of a repulsive force in
the atomic sphere had been long suspected and of late certainly
ascertained, and its preponderance is held to be the characteristic of
the gaseous as distinguished from the liquid or solid state of matter.
Till lately, no means of generating or collecting this force in large
quantity had been found. The progress of electrical science had solved
this difficulty; and when the secret was communicated to me, it
possessed a value which had never before belonged to it.
Ever since, in childhood, I learnt that the planets were worlds, a
visit to one or more of the nearest of them had been my favourite
day-dream. Treasuring every hint afforded by science or fancy that
bore upon the subject, I felt confident that such a voyage would be
one day achieved. Helped by one or two really ingenious romances on
this theme, I had dreamed out my dream, realised every difficulty,
ascertained every factor in the problem. I had satisfied myself that
only one thing needful was as yet wholly beyond the reach and even the
proximate hopes of science. Human invention could furnish as yet no
motive power that could fulfil the main requirement of the
problem—uniform or constantly increasing motion _in vacuo_—motion
through a region affording no resisting medium. This must be a
_repulsive_ energy capable of acting through an utter void. Man,
animals, birds, fishes move by repulsion applied at every moment. In
air or water, paddles, oars, sails, fins, wings act by repulsion
exerted on the fluid element in which they work. But in space there is
no such resisting element on which repulsion can operate. I needed a
repulsion which would act like gravitation through an indefinite
distance and in a void—act upon a remote fulcrum, such as might be
the Earth in a voyage to the Moon, or the Sun in a more distant
journey. As soon, then, as the character of the apergic force was made
known to me, its application to this purpose seized on my mind.
Experiment had proved it possible, by the method described at the
commencement of this record, to generate and collect it in amounts
practically unlimited. The other hindrances to a voyage through space
were trivial in comparison with that thus overcome; there were
difficulties to be surmounted, not absent or deficient powers in
nature to be discovered. The chief of these, of course, concerned the
conveyance of air sufficient for the needs of the traveller during the
period of his journey. The construction of an air-tight vessel was
easy enough; but however large the body of air conveyed, even though
its oxygen should not be exhausted, the carbonic acid given out by
breathing would very soon so contaminate the whole that life would be
impossible. To eliminate this element it would only be necessary to
carry a certain quantity of lime-water, easily calculated, and by
means of a fan or similar instrument to drive the whole of the air
periodically through the vessel containing it. The lime in solution
combining with the noxious gas would show by the turbid whiteness of
the water the absorption of the carbonic acid and formation of
carbonate of lime. But if the carbonic acid gas were merely to be
removed, it is obvious that the oxygen of the air, which forms a part
of that gas, would be constantly diminished and ultimately exhausted;
and the effect of highly oxygenated air upon the circulation is
notoriously too great to allow of any considerable increase at the
outset in the proportion of this element. I might carry a fresh supply
of oxygen, available at need, in some solid combination like chlorate
of potash; but the electricity employed for the generation of the
apergy might be also applied to the decomposition of carbonic acid and
the restoration of its oxygen to the atmosphere.
But the vessel had to be steered as well as propelled; and in order to
accomplish this it would be necessary to command the direction of the
apergy at pleasure. My means of doing this depended on two of the
best-established peculiarities of this strange force: its rectilinear
direction and its conductibility. We found that it acts through air or
in a vacuum in a single straight line, without deflection, and
seemingly without diminution. Most solids, and especially metals,
according to their electric condition, are more or less impervious to
it—antapergic. Its power of penetration diminishes under a very
obscure law, but so rapidly that no conceivable strength of current
would affect an object protected by an intervening sheet half an inch
in thickness. On the other hand, it prefers to all other lines the
axis of a conductive bar, such as may be formed of [undecipherable] in
an antapergic sheath. However such bar may be curved, bent, or
divided, the current will fill and follow it, and pursue indefinitely,
without divergence, diffusion, or loss, the direction in which it
emerges. Therefore, by collecting the current from the generator in a
vessel cased with antapergic material, and leaving no other aperture,
its entire volume might be sent into a conductor. By cutting across
this conductor, and causing the further part to rotate upon the
nearer, I could divert the current through any required angle. Thus I
could turn the repulsion upon the resistant body (sun or planet), and
so propel the vessel in any direction I pleased.
I had determined that my first attempt should be a visit to Mars. The
Moon is a far less interesting body, since, on the hemisphere turned
towards the Earth, the absence of an atmosphere and of water ensures
the absence of any such life as is known to us—probably of any life
that could be discerned by our senses—and would prevent landing;
while nearly all the soundest astronomers agree in believing, on
apparently sufficient grounds, that even the opposite hemisphere [of
which small portions are from time to time rendered visible by the
libration, though greatly foreshortened and consequently somewhat
imperfectly seen] is equally devoid of the two primary necessaries of
animal and vegetable life. That Mars has seas, clouds, and an
atmosphere was generally admitted, and I held it to be beyond
question. Of Venus, owing to her extraordinary brilliancy, to the fact
that when nearest to the Earth a very small portion of her lighted
surface is visible to us, and above all to her dense cloud-envelope,
very little was known; and though I cherished the intention to visit
her even more earnestly than my resolve to reach the probably less
attractive planet Mars, I determined to begin with that voyage of
which the conditions and the probable result were most obvious and
certain. I preferred, moreover, in the first instance, to employ the
apergy as a propelling rather than as a resisting force. Now, after
passing beyond the immediate sphere of the Earth's attraction, it is
plain that in going towards Mars I should be departing from the Sun,
relying upon the apergy to overcome his attraction; whereas in seeking
to attain Venus I should be approaching the Sun, relying for my main
motive power upon that tremendous attraction, and employing the apergy
only to moderate the rate of movement and control its direction. The
latter appeared to me the more delicate, difficult, and perhaps
dangerous task of the two; and I resolved to defer it until after I
had acquired some practical experience and dexterity in the control of
my machinery.
It was expedient, of course, to make my vessel as light as possible,
and, at the same time, as large as considerations of weight would
admit. But it was of paramount importance to have walls of great
thickness, in order to prevent the penetration of the outer cold of
space, or rather the outward passage into that intense cold of the
heat generated within the vessel itself, as well as to resist the
tremendous outward pressure of the air inside. Partly for these
reasons, and partly because its electric character makes it especially
capable of being rendered at will pervious or impervious to the
apergic current, I resolved to make the outer and inner walls of an
alloy of ..., while the space between should be filled up with a mass
of concrete or cement, in its nature less penetrable to heat than any
other substance which Nature has furnished or the wit of man
constructed from her materials. The materials of this cement and their
proportions were as follows. [2]
* * * * *
Briefly, having determined to take advantage of the approaching
opposition of Mars in MDCCCXX ... [3], I had my vessel constructed with
walls three feet thick, of which the outer six and the inner three
inches were formed of the metalloid. In shape my Astronaut somewhat
resembled the form of an antique Dutch East-Indiaman, being widest and
longest in a plane equidistant from floor and ceiling, the sides and
ends sloping outwards from the floor and again inwards towards the
roof. The deck and keel, however, were absolutely flat, and each one
hundred feet in length and fifty in breadth, the height of the vessel
being about twenty feet. In the centre of the floor and in that of the
roof respectively I placed a large lens of crystal, intended to act as
a window in the first instance, the lower to admit the rays of the
Sun, while through the upper I should discern the star towards which I
was steering. The floor, being much heavier than the rest of the
vessel, would naturally be turned downwards; that is, during the
greater part of the voyage towards the Sun. I placed a similar lens in
the centre of each of the four sides, with two plane windows of the
same material, one in the upper, the other in the lower half of the
wall, to enable me to discern any object in whatever direction. The
crystal in question consisted of ..., which, as those who manufactured
it for me are aware, admits of being cast with a perfection and
equality of structure throughout unattainable with ordinary glass, and
wrought to a certainty and accuracy of curvature which the most
patient and laborious polishing can hardly give to the lenses even of
moderate-sized telescopes, whether made of glass or metal, and is
singularly impervious to heat. I had so calculated the curvature that
several eye-pieces of different magnifying powers which I carried with
me might be adapted equally to any of the window lenses, and throw a
perfect image, magnified by 100, 1000, or 5000, upon mirrors properly
placed.
I carpeted the floor with several alternate layers of cork and cloth.
At one end I placed my couch, table, bookshelves, and other necessary
furniture, with all the stores needed for my voyage, and with a
further weight sufficient to preserve equilibrium. At the other I made
a garden with soil three feet deep and five feet in width, divided
into two parts so as to permit access to the windows. I filled each
garden closely with shrubs and flowering plants of the greatest
possible variety, partly to absorb animal waste, partly in the hope of
naturalising them elsewhere. Covering both with wire netting extending
from the roof to the floor, I filled the cages thus formed with a
variety of birds. In the centre of the vessel was the machinery,
occupying altogether a space of about thirty feet by twenty. The
larger portion of this area was, of course, taken up by the generator,
above which was the receptacle of the apergy. From this descended
right through the floor a conducting bar in an antapergic sheath, so
divided that without separating it from the upper portion the lower
might revolve in any direction through an angle of twenty minutes
(20'). This, of course, was intended to direct the stream of the
repulsive force against the Sun. The angle might have been extended to
thirty minutes, but that I deemed it inexpedient to rely upon a force,
directed against the outer portions of the Sun's disc, believing that
these are occupied by matter of density so small that it might afford
no sufficient base, so to speak, for the repulsive action. It was
obviously necessary also to repel or counteract the attraction of any
body which might come near me during the voyage. Again, in getting
free from the Earth's influence, I must be able to steer in any
direction and at any angle to the surface. For this purpose I placed
five smaller bars, passing through the roof and four sides, connected,
like the main conductor, with the receptacle or apergion, but so that
they could revolve through a much larger angle, and could at any
moment be detached and insulated. My steering apparatus consisted of a
table in which were three large circles. The midmost and left hand of
these were occupied by accurately polished plane mirrors. The central
circle, or metacompass, was divided by three hundred and sixty fine
lines, radiating from the centre to the circumference, marking as many
different directions, each deviating by one degree of arc from the
next. This mirror was to receive through the lens in the roof the
image of the star towards which I was steering. While this remained
stationary in the centre all was well. When it moved along any one of
the lines, the vessel was obviously deviating from her course in the
opposite direction; and, to recover the right course, the repellent
force must be caused to drive her in the direction in which the image
had moved. To accomplish this, a helm was attached to the lower
division of the main conductor, by which the latter could be made to
move at will in any direction within the limit of its rotation.
Controlling this helm was, in the open or steering circle on the right
hand, a small knob to be moved exactly parallel to the deviation of
the star in the mirror of the metacompass. The left-hand circle, or
discometer, was divided by nineteen hundred and twenty concentric
circles, equidistant from each other. The outermost, about twice as
far from the centre as from the external edge of the mirror, was
exactly equal to the Sun's circumference when presenting the largest
disc he ever shows to an observer on Earth. Each inner circle
corresponded to a diameter reduced by one second. By means of a
vernier or eye-piece, the diameter of the Sun could be read off the
discometer, and from his diameter my distance could be accurately
calculated. On the further side of the machinery was a chamber for the
decomposition of the carbonic acid, through which the air was driven
by a fan. This fan itself was worked by a horizontal wheel with two
projecting squares of antapergic metal, against each of which, as it
reached a certain point, a very small stream of repulsive force was
directed from the apergion, keeping the wheel in constant and rapid
motion. I had, of course, supplied myself with an ample store of
compressed vegetables, preserved meats, milk, tea, coffee, &c., and a
supply of water sufficient to last for double the period which the
voyage was expected to occupy; also a well-furnished tool-chest (with
wires, tubes, &c.). One of the lower windows was made just large
enough to admit my person, and after entering I had to close it and
fix it in its place firmly with cement, which, when I wished to quit
the vessel, would have again to be removed.
Of course some months were occupied in the manufacture of the
different portions of the vessel and her machinery, and sometime more
in their combination; so that when, at the end of July, I was ready to
start, the opposition was rapidly approaching. In the course of some
fifty days the Earth, moving in her orbit at a rate of about eleven
hundred miles [4] per minute, would overtake Mars; that is to say,
would pass between him and the Sun. In starting from the Earth I
should share this motion; I too should go eleven hundred miles a
minute in the same direction; but as I should travel along an orbit
constantly widening, the Earth would leave me behind. The apergy had
to make up for this, as well as to carry me some forty millions of
miles in a direction at right angles to the former—right outward
towards the orbit of Mars. Again, I should share the motion of that
particular spot of the Earth's surface from which I rose around her
axis, a motion varying with the latitude, greatest at the equator,
nothing at the pole. This would whirl me round and round the Earth at
the rate of a thousand miles an hour; of this I must, of course, get
rid as soon as possible. And when I should be rid of it, I meant to
start at first right upward; that is, straight away from the Sun and
in the plane of the ecliptic, which is not very different from that in
which Mars also moves. Therefore I should begin my effective ascent
from a point of the Earth as far as possible from the Sun; that is, on
the midnight meridian.
For the same reason which led me to start so long before the date of
the opposition, I resolved, having regard to the action of the Earth's
rotation on her axis, to start some hours before midnight. Taking
leave, then, of the two friends who had thus far assisted me, I
entered the Astronaut on the 1st August, about 4.30 P.M. After sealing
up the entrance-window, and ascertaining carefully that everything was
in order—a task which occupied me about an hour—I set the generator
to work; and when I had ascertained that the apergion was full, and
that the force was supplied at the required rate, I directed the whole
at first into the main conductor. After doing this I turned towards
the lower window on the west—or, as it was then, the right-hand
side—and was in time to catch sight of the trees on the hills, some
half mile off and about two hundred feet above the level of my
starting-point. I should have said that I had considerably compressed
my atmosphere and increased the proportion of oxygen by about ten per
cent., and also carried with me the means of reproducing the whole
amount of the latter in case of need. Among my instruments was a
pressure-gauge, so minutely divided that, with a movable vernier of
the same power as the fixed ones employed to read the glass circles, I
could discover the slightest escape of air in a very few seconds. The
pressure-gauge, however, remained immovable. Going close to the window
and looking out, I saw the Earth falling from me so fast that, within
five minutes after my departure, objects like trees and even houses
had become almost indistinguishable to the naked eye. I had half
expected to hear the whistling of the air as the vessel rushed upward,
but nothing of the kind was perceptible through her dense walls. It
was strange to observe the rapid rise of the sun from the westward.
Still more remarkable, on turning to the upper window, was the rapidly
blackening aspect of the sky. Suddenly everything disappeared except a
brilliant rainbow at some little distance—or perhaps I should rather
have said a halo of more than ordinary rainbow brilliancy, since it
occupied, not like the rainbows seen from below, something less than
half, but nearly two-thirds of a circle. I was, of course, aware that
I was passing through a cloud, and one of very unusual thickness. In a
few seconds, however, I was looking down upon its upper surface,
reflecting from a thousand broken masses of vapour at different
levels, from cavities and hillocks of mist, the light of the sun;
white beams mixed with innumerable rays of all colours in a confusion,
of indescribable brilliancy. I presume that the total obscuration of
everything outside the cloud during my passage through it was due to
its extent and not to its density, since at that height it could not
have been otherwise than exceedingly light and diffuse. Looking upward
through the eastern window, I could now discern a number of brighter
stars, and at nearly every moment fresh ones came into view on a
constantly darkening background. Looking downward to the west, where
alone the entire landscape lay in daylight, I presently discerned the
outline of shore and sea extending over a semicircle whose radius much
exceeded five hundred miles, implying that I was about thirty-five
miles from the sea-level. Even at this height the extent of my survey
was so great in comparison to my elevation, that a line drawn from the
vessel to the horizon was, though very roughly, almost parallel to the
surface; and the horizon therefore seemed to be not very far from my
own level, while the point below me, of course, appeared at a vast
distance. The appearance of the surface, therefore, was as if the
horizon had been, say, some thirty miles higher than the centre of the
semicircle bounding my view, and the area included in my prospect had
the form of a saucer or shallow bowl. But since the diameter of the
visible surface increases only as the square root of the height, this
appearance became less and less perceptible as I rose higher. It had
taken me twenty minutes to attain the elevation of thirty-five miles;
but my speed was, of course, constantly increasing, very much as the
speed of an object falling to the Earth from a great height increases;
and before ten more minutes had elapsed, I found myself surrounded by
a blackness nearly absolute, except in the direction of the
Sun,—which was still well above the sea—and immediately round the
terrestrial horizon, on which rested a ring of sunlit azure sky,
broken here and there by clouds. In every other direction I seemed to
be looking not merely upon a black or almost black sky, but into close
surrounding darkness. Amid this darkness, however, were visible
innumerable points of light, more or less brilliant—the stars—which
no longer seemed to be spangled over the surface of a distant vault,
but rather scattered immediately about me, nearer or farther to the
instinctive apprehension of the eye as they were brighter or fainter.
Scintillation there was none, except in the immediate vicinity of the
eastern horizon, where I still saw them through a dense atmosphere. In
short, before thirty minutes had elapsed since the start, I was
satisfied that I had passed entirely out of the atmosphere, and had
entered into the vacancy of space—if such a thing as vacant space
there be.
At this point I had to cut off the greater part of the apergy and
check my speed, for reasons that will be presently apparent. I had
started in daylight in order that during the first hundred miles of my
ascent I might have a clear view of the Earth's surface. Not only did
I wish to enjoy the spectacle, but as I had to direct my course by
terrestrial landmarks, it was necessary that I should be able to see
these so as to determine the rate and direction of the Astronaut's
motion, and discern the first symptoms of any possible danger. But
obviously, since my course lay generally in the plane of the ecliptic,
and for the present at least nearly in the line joining the centres of
the Earth and Sun, it was desirable that my real journey into space
should commence in the plane of the midnight meridian; that is, from
above the part of the Earth's surface immediately opposite the Sun. I
had to reach this line, and having reached it, to remain for some time
above it. To do both, I must attain it, if possible, at the same
moment at which I secured a westward impulse just sufficient to
counterbalance the eastward impulse derived from the rotation of the
Earth;—that is, in the latitude from which I started, a thousand
miles an hour. I had calculated that while directing through the main
bar a current of apergy sufficient to keep the Astronaut at a fixed
elevation, I could easily spare for the eastward conductor sufficient
force to create in the space of one hour the impulse required, but
that in the course of that hour the gradually increasing apergic force
would drive me 500 miles westward. Now in six hours the Earth's
rotation would carry an object close to its surface through an angle
of 90°; that is, from the sunset to the midnight meridian. But the
greater the elevation of the object the wider its orbit round the
Earth's centre, and the longer each degree; so that moving eastward
only a thousand miles an hour, I should constantly lag behind a point
on the Earth's surface, and should not reach the midnight meridian
till somewhat later. I had, moreover, to lose 500 miles of the
eastward drift during the last hour in which I should be subject to
it, through the action of the apergic force above-mentioned. Now, an
elevation of 330 miles would give the Astronaut an orbit on which 90°
would represent 6500 miles. In seven hours I should be carried along
that orbit 7000 miles eastward by the impulse my Astronaut had
received from the Earth, and driven back 500 miles by the apergy; so
that at 1 A.M. by my chronometer I should be exactly in the plane of
the midnight meridian, or 6500 miles east of my starting-point in
space, provided that I put the eastward apergic current in action
exactly at 12 P.M. by the chronometer. At 1 A.M. also I should have
generated a westward impulse of 1000 miles an hour. This, once
created, would continue to exist though the force that created it were
cut off, and would exactly counterbalance the opposite rotation
impulse derived from the Earth; so that thenceforward I should be
entirely free from the influence of the latter, though still sharing
that motion of the Earth through space at the rate of nearly nineteen
miles per second, which would carry me towards the line joining at the
moment of opposition her centre with that of Mars.
All went as I had calculated. I contrived to arrest the Astronaut's
motion at the required elevation just about the moment of sunset on
the region of the Earth immediately underneath. At 12 P.M., or 24h by
the chronometer, I directed a current of the requisite strength into
the eastward conductor, which I had previously pointed to the Earth's
surface, but a little short of the extreme terrestrial horizon, as I
calculated it. At 1 A.M. I found myself, judging by the stars, exactly
where I wished to be, and nearly stationary as regarded the Earth. I
instantly arrested the eastward current, detaching that conductor from
the apergion; and, directing the whole force of the current into the
downward conductor, I had the pleasure of seeing that, after a very
little adjustment of the helm, the stars remained stationary in the
mirror of the metacompass, showing that I had escaped from the
influence of the Earth's rotation. It was of course impossible to
measure the distance traversed during the invisibility of the Earth,
but I reckoned that I had made above 500 miles between 1h. and 2h.
A.M., and that at 4h. I was not less than 4800 miles from the surface.
With this inference the indication of my barycrite substantially
agreed. The latter instrument consisted of a spring whose deflection
by a given weight upon the equator had been very carefully tested.
Gravity diminishing as the square of the distance from the centre, it
was obvious that at about 8000 miles—or 4000 above the Earth's
surface—this spring would be deflected only one quarter as much by a
given weight as on Earth: at 16,000 miles from the surface, or 20,000
from the centre, one-twenty-fifth as much, and so on. I had graduated
the scale accordingly, and it indicated at present a distance somewhat
less than 9000 miles from the centre. Having adjusted the helm and set
the alarum to wake me in six hours, I lay down upon my bed.
The anxiety and peril of my position had disturbed me very little
whilst I was actively engaged either in steering and manipulating my
machinery, or in looking upon the marvellous and novel spectacles
presented to my eyes; but it now oppressed me in my sleep, and caused
me frequently to wake from dreams of a hideous character. Two or three
times, on such awaking, I went to examine the metacompass, and on one
occasion found it necessary slightly to readjust the helm; the stars
by which I steered having moved some second or two to the right of
their proper position.
On rising, I completed the circuit which filled my vessel with
brilliant light emitted from an electric lamp at the upper part of the
stern, and reflected by the polished metallic walls. I then proceeded
to get my breakfast, for which, as I had tasted nothing since some
hours before the start, I had a hearty appetite. I had anticipated
some trouble from the diminished action of gravity, doubting whether
the boiling-point at this immense height above the Earth might not be
affected; but I found that this depends upon the pressure of the
atmosphere alone, and that this pressure was in nowise affected by the
absence of gravity. My atmosphere being somewhat denser than that of
the Earth, the boiling-point was not 100°, but 101° Cent. The
temperature of the interior of the vessel, taken at a point
equidistant from the stove and from the walls, was about 5° C.;
unpleasantly cool, but still, with the help of a greatcoat, not
inconveniently so. I found it absolutely impossible to measure by
means of the thermometers I had placed outside the windows the cold of
space; but that it falls far short of the extreme supposed by some
writers, I confidently believe. It is, however, cold enough to freeze
mercury, and to reduce every other substance employed as a test of
atmospheric or laboratory temperatures to a solidity which admits of
no further contraction. I had filled one outside thermometer with
spirit, but this was broken before I looked at it; and in another,
whose bulb unfortunately was blackened, and which was filled with
carbonic acid gas, an apparent vacuum had been created. Was it that
the gas had been frozen, and had sunk into the lower part of the bulb,
where it would, of course, be invisible? When I had completed my meal
and smoked the very small cigar which alone a prudent consideration
for the state of the atmosphere would allow me, the chronometer showed
10 A.M. It was not surprising that by this time weight had become
almost non-existent. My twelve stone had dwindled to the weight of a
small fowl, and hooking my little finger into the loop of a string
hung from a peg fixed near the top of the stern wall, I found myself
able thus to support my weight without any sense of fatigue for a
quarter of an hour or more; in fact, I felt during that time
absolutely no sense of muscular weariness. This state of things
entailed only one inconvenience. Nothing had any stability; so that
the slightest push or jerk would upset everything that was not fixed.
However, I had so far anticipated this that nothing of any material
consequence was unfixed, and except that a touch with my spoon upset
the egg-cup and egg on which I was about to breakfast, and that this,
falling against a breakfast cup full of coffee, overturned that, I was
not incommoded. I managed to save the greater part of the beverage,
since, the atmospheric pressure being the same though the weight was
so changed, lead, and still more china or liquid, fell in the
Astronaut as slowly as feathers in the immediate vicinity of the
Earth. Still it was a novel experience to find myself able to lean in
any direction, and rest in almost any posture, with but the slightest
support for the body's centre of gravity; and further to find on
experiment that it was possible to remain for a couple of hours with
my heels above my head, in the favourite position of a Yankee's lower
limbs, without any perceptible congestion of blood or confusion of
brain.
I was occupied all day with abstract calculations; and knowing that
for some time I could see nothing of the Earth—her dark side being
opposite me and wholly obscuring the Sun, while I was as yet far from
having entered within the sphere where any novel celestial phenomena
might be expected—I only gave an occasional glance at the discometer
and metacompass, suppressing of course the electric glare within my
vessel, till I awoke from a short siesta about 19h. (7 P.M.) The Earth
at this time occupied on the sphere of view a space—defined at first
only by the absence of stars—about thirty times greater than the disc
of the Moon as seen through a tube; but, being dark, scarcely seemed
larger to the eye than the full Moon when on the horizon. But a new
method of defining its disc was presently afforded me. I was, in fact,
when looking through the lower window, in the same position as regards
the Earth as would be an inhabitant of the lunar hemisphere turned
towards her, having no external atmosphere interposed between us, but
being at about two-thirds of the lunar distance. And as, during an
eclipse, the Lunarian would see round the Earth a halo created by the
refraction of the Sun's rays in the terrestrial atmosphere—a halo
bright enough on most occasions so to illuminate the Moon as to render
her visible to us—so to my eyes the Earth was surrounded by a halo
somewhat resembling the solar corona as seen in eclipses, if not
nearly so brilliant, but, unlike the solar corona, coloured, with a
preponderance of red so decided as fully to account for the peculiar
hue of the eclipsed Moon. To paint this, unless means of painting
light—the one great deficiency which is still the opprobrium of human
art—were discovered, would task to the uttermost the powers of the
ablest artist, and at best he could give but a very imperfect notion
of it. To describe it so that its beauty, brilliancy, and wondrous
nature shall be in the slightest degree appreciated by my readers
would require a command of words such as no poet since Homer—nay, not
Homer himself—possessed. What was strange, and can perhaps be
rendered intelligible, was the variation, or, to use a phrase more
suggestive and more natural, if not more accurate, the extreme
mobility of the hues of this earthly corona. There were none of the
efflorescences, if one may so term them, which are so generally
visible at four cardinal points of its solar prototype. The outer
portion of the band faded very rapidly into the darkness of space; but
the edge, though absolutely undefined, was perfectly even. But on the
generally rainbow-tinted ground suffused with red—which perhaps might
best be described by calling it a rainbow seen on a background of
brilliant crimson—there were here and there blotches of black or of
lighter or darker grey, caused apparently by vast expanses of cloud,
more or less dense. Round the edges of each of these were little
irregular rainbow-coloured halos of their own interrupting and
variegating the continuous bands of the corona; while throughout all
was discernible a perpetual variability, like the flashing or shooting
of colour in the opal, the mother-of-pearl, or similarly tinted
translucent substances when exposed to the irregular play of bright
light—only that in this case the tints were incomparably more
brilliant, the change more striking, if not more rapid. I could not
say that at any particular moment any point or part of the surface
presented this or that definite hue; and yet the general character of
the rainbow, suffused with or backed by crimson, was constant and
unmistakable. The light sent through the window was too dim and too
imperfectly diffused within my vessel to be serviceable, but for some
time I put out the electric lamp in order that its diffused light
should not impair my view of this exquisite spectacle. As thrown,
after several reflections, upon the mirror destined afterwards to
measure the image of the solar disc, the apparition of the halo was of
course much less bright, and its outer boundary ill defined for
accurate measurement. The inner edge, where the light was bounded by
the black disc of the Earth, shaded off much more quickly from dark
reddish purple into absolute blackness.
And now a surprise, the first I had encountered, awaited me. I
registered the gravity as shown by the barycrite; and, extinguishing
the electric lamp, measured repeatedly the semi-diameter of the Earth
and of the halo around her upon the discometer, the inner edge of the
latter affording the measurement of the black disc, which of itself,
of course, cast no reflection. I saw at once that there was a signal
difference in the two indications, and proceeded carefully to revise
the earth-measurements. On the average of thirteen measures the halo
was about 87", or nearly 1½' in breadth, the disc, allowing for the
twilight round its edge or limb, about 2° 50'. If the refracting
atmosphere were some 65 miles in depth, these proportions were correct.
Relighting the lamp, I worked out severally on paper the results
indicated by the two instruments. The discometer gave a distance,
roughly speaking, of 40 terrestrial radii, or 160,000 miles. The
barycrite should have shown a gravity, due to the Earth's attraction,
not 40 but 1600 times less than that prevailing on the Earth's surface;
or, to put it in a less accurate form, a weight of 100 lbs. should have
weighed an ounce. It did weigh two ounces, the gravity being not one
1600th but one 800th of terrestrial gravity, or just double what, I
expected. I puzzled myself over this matter longer, probably, than the
intelligent reader will do: the explanation being obvious, like that of
many puzzles that bewilder our minds intensely, only to humiliate us
proportionately when the solution is found—a solution as simple as that
of Columbus's egg-riddle. At length, finding that the lunar angle—the
apparent position of the Moon—confirmed the reading of the discometer,
giving the same apogaic distance or elevation, I supposed that the
barycrite must be out of order or subject to some unsuspected law of
which future observations might afford evidence and explanation, and
turned to other subjects of interest.
Looking through the upper window on the left, I was struck by the
rapid enlargement of a star which, when I first noticed it, might be
of the third magnitude, but which in less than a minute attained the
first, and in a minute more was as large as the planet Jupiter when
seen with a magnifying power of one hundred diameters.
Its disc, however, had no continuous outline; and as it approached I
perceived that it was an irregular mass of whose size I could form not
even a conjectural estimate, since its distance must be absolutely
uncertain. Its brilliancy grew fainter in proportion to the
enlargement as it approached, proving that its light was reflected;
and as it passed me, apparently in the direction of the earth, I had a
sufficiently distinct view of it to know that it was a mainly metallic
mass, certainly of some size, perhaps four, perhaps twenty feet in
diameter, and apparently composed chiefly of iron; showing a more or
less blistered surface, but with angles sharper and faces more
regularly defined than most of those which have been found upon the
earth's surface—as if the shape of the latter might be due in part to
the conflagration they undergo in passing at such tremendous speed
through the atmosphere, or, in an opposite sense, to the fractures
caused by the shock of their falling. Though I made no attempt to
count the innumerable stars in the midst of which I appeared to float,
I was convinced that their number was infinitely greater than that
visible to the naked eye on the brightest night. I remembered how
greatly the inexperienced eye exaggerates the number of stars visible
from the Earth, since poets, and even olden observers, liken their
number to that of the sands on the seashore; whereas the patient work
of map and catalogue makers has shown that there are but a few
thousands visible in the whole heavens to the keenest unaided sight. I
suppose that I saw a hundred times that number. In one word, the
sphere of darkness in which I floated seemed to be filled with points
of light, while the absolute blackness that surrounded them, the
absence of the slightest radiation, or illumination of space at large,
was strange beyond expression to an eye accustomed to that diffusion
of light which is produced by the atmosphere. I may mention here that
the recognition of the constellations was at first exceedingly
difficult. On Earth we see so few stars in any given portion of the
heavens, that one recognises without an effort the figure marked out
by a small number of the brightest amongst them; while in my position
the multitude was so great that only patient and repeated effort
enabled me to separate from the rest those peculiarly brilliant
luminaries by which we are accustomed to define such constellations as
Orion or the Bear, to say nothing of those minor or more arbitrarily
drawn figures which contain few stars of the second magnitude. The eye
had no instinctive sense of distance; any star might have been within
a stone's throw. I need hardly observe that, while on one hand the
motion of the vessel was absolutely imperceptible, there was, on the
other, no change of position among the stars which could enable me to
verify the fact that I was moving, much less suggest it to the senses.
The direction of every recognisable star was the same as on Earth, as
it appears the same from the two extremities of the Earth's orbit, 19
millions of miles apart. Looking from any one window, I could see no
greater space of the heavens than in looking through a similar
aperture on Earth. What was novel and interesting in my stellar
prospect was, not merely that I could see those stars north and south
which are never visible from the same point on Earth, except in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Equator; but that, save on the small
space concealed by the Earth's disc, I could, by moving from window to
window, survey the entire heavens, looking at one minute upon the
stars surrounding the vernal, and at another, by changing my position,
upon those in the neighbourhood of the autumnal equinox. By little
more than a turn of my head I could see in one direction Polaris
(_alpha_ Ursæ Minoris) with the Great Bear, and in another the
Southern Cross, the Ship, and the Centaur.
About 23h. 30m., near the close of the first day, I again inspected
the barycrite. It showed ¹⁄₁₁₀₀ of terrestrial gravity, an incredibly
small change from the ¹⁄₈₀₀ recorded at 19h., since it implied a
progress proportionate only to the square root of the difference. The
observation indicated, if the instrument could be trusted, an advance
of only 18,000 miles. It was impossible that the Astronaut had not by
this time attained a very much greater speed than 4000 miles an hour,
and a greater distance from the Earth than 33 terrestrial radii, or
132,000 miles. Moreover, the barycrite itself had given at 19h. a
distance of 28½ radii, and a speed far greater than that which upon
its showing had since been maintained. Extinguishing the lamp, I found
that the Earth's diameter on the discometer measured 2° 3′ 52″ (?).
This represented a gain of some 90,000 miles; much more approximate
to that which, judging by calculation, I ought to have accomplished
during the last four hours and a half, if my speed approached to that
I had estimated. I inspected the cratometer, which indicated a force
as great as that with which I had started,—a force which should by
this time have given me a speed of at least 22,000 miles an hour. At
last the solution of the problem flashed upon me, suggested by the
very extravagance of the contradictions. Not only did the barycrite
contradict the discometer and the reckoning but it contradicted
itself; since it was impossible that under one continuous impulsation
I should have traversed 28½ radii of the Earth in the first eighteen
hours and no more than 4½ in the next four and a half hours. In truth,
the barycrite was effected by two separate attractions,—that of the
Earth and that of the Sun, as yet operating almost exactly in the same
direction. At first the attraction of the former was so great that that
of the Sun was no more perceived than upon the Earth's surface. But
as I rose, and the Earth's attraction diminished in proportion to the
square of the distance from her centre—which was doubled at 8000 miles,
quadrupled at 16,000, and so on—the Sun's attraction, which was not
perceptibly affected by differences so small in proportion to his vast
distance of 95,000,000 miles, became a more and more important element
in the total gravity. If, as I calculated, I had by 19h. attained a
distance from the earth of 160,000 miles, the attractions of Earth and
Sun were by that time pretty nearly equal; and hence the phenomenon
which had so puzzled me, that the gravitation, as indicated by the
barycrite, was exactly double that which, bearing in mind the Earth's
attraction alone, I had calculated. From this point forward the Sun's
attraction was the factor which mainly caused such weight as still
existed; a change of position which, doubling my distance from the
Earth, reduced her influence to one-fourth, not perceptibly affecting
that of a body four hundred times more remote. A short calculation
showed that, this fact borne in mind, the indication of the barycrite
substantially agreed with that of the discometer, and that I was in
fact very nearly where I supposed, that is, a little farther than the
Moon's farthest distance from the Earth. It did not follow that I had
crossed the orbit of the Moon; and if I had, she was at that time too
far off to exercise a serious influence on my course. I adjusted the
helm and betook myself to rest, the second day of my journey having
already commenced.