A MEETING.
The next day the sun did not rise early enough to satisfy public
impatience. Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet questions would be put to
Michel Ardan, would like to have reduced his auditors to a small number
of adepts, to his colleagues for instance. But it was as easy as to dam
up the Falls at Niagara. He was, therefore, obliged to renounce his
project, and let his friend run all the risks of a public lecture. The
new Town Hall of Tampa Town, notwithstanding its colossal dimensions,
was considered insufficient for the occasion, which had assumed the
proportions of a public meeting.
The place chosen was a vast plain, situated outside the town. In a few
hours they succeeded in sheltering it from the rays of the sun. The
ships of the port, rich in canvas, furnished the necessary accessories
for a colossal tent. Soon an immense sky of cloth was spread over the
calcined plain, and defended it against the heat of the day. There
300,000 persons stood and braved a stifling temperature for several
hours whilst awaiting the Frenchman's arrival. Of that crowd of
spectators one-third alone could see and hear; a second third saw badly,
and did not hear. As to the remaining third, it neither heard nor saw,
though it was not the least eager to applaud.
At three o'clock Michel Ardan made his appearance, accompanied by the
principal members of the Gun Club. He gave his right arm to President
Barbicane, and his left to J.T. Maston, more radiant than the midday
sun, and nearly as ruddy.
Ardan mounted the platform, from which his eyes extended over a forest
of black hats. He did not seem in the least embarrassed; he did not
pose; he was at home there, gay, familiar, and amiable. To the cheers
that greeted him he answered by a gracious bow; then with his hand asked
for silence, began to speak in English, and expressed himself very
correctly in these terms:--
"Gentlemen," said he, "although it is very warm, I intend to keep you a
few minutes to give you some explanation of the projects which have
appeared to interest you. I am neither an orator nor a _savant_, and I
did not count upon having to speak in public; but my friend Barbicane
tells me it would give you pleasure, so I do it. Then listen to me with
your 600,000 ears, and please to excuse the faults of the orator."
This unceremonious beginning was much admired by the audience, who
expressed their satisfaction by an immense murmur of applause.
"Gentlemen," said he, "no mark of approbation or dissent is prohibited.
That settled, I continue. And, first of all, do not forget that you have
to do with an ignorant man, but his ignorance goes far enough to ignore
difficulties. It has, therefore, appeared a simple, natural, and easy
thing to him to take his passage in a projectile and to start for the
moon. That journey would be made sooner or later, and as to the mode of
locomotion adopted, it simply follows the law of progress. Man began by
travelling on all fours, then one fine day he went on two feet, then in
a cart, then in a coach, then on a railway. Well, the projectile is the
carriage of the future, and, to speak the truth, planets are only
projectiles, simple cannon-balls hurled by the hand of the Creator. But
to return to our vehicle. Some of you, gentlemen, may think that the
speed it will travel at is excessive--nothing of the kind. All the
planets go faster, and the earth itself in its movement round the sun
carries us along three times as fast. Here are some examples. Only I ask
your permission to express myself in leagues, for American measures are
not very familiar to me, and I fear getting muddled in my calculations."
The demand appeared quite simple, and offered no difficulty. The orator
resumed his speech.
"The following, gentlemen, is the speed of the different planets. I am
obliged to acknowledge that, notwithstanding my ignorance, I know this
small astronomical detail exactly, but in two minutes you will be as
learned as I. Learn, then, that Neptune goes at the rate of 5,000
leagues an hour; Uranus, 7,000; Saturn, 8,858; Jupiter, 11,675; Mars,
22,011; the earth, 27,500; Venus, 32,190; Mercury, 52,520; some comets,
14,000 leagues in their perihelion! As to us, veritable idlers, people
in no hurry, our speed does not exceed 9,900 leagues, and it will go on
decreasing! I ask you if there is anything to wonder at, and if it is
not evident that it will be surpassed some day by still greater speeds,
of which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agents?"
No one seemed to doubt this affirmation.
"Dear hearers," he resumed, "according to certain narrow minds--that is
the best qualification for them--humanity is inclosed in a Popilius
circle which it cannot break open, and is condemned to vegetate upon
this globe without ever flying towards the planetary shores! Nothing of
the kind! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall
go to the stars as we now go from Liverpool to New York, easily,
rapidly, surely, and the atmospheric ocean will be as soon crossed as
the oceans of the earth! Distance is only a relative term, and will end
by being reduced to zero."
The assembly, though greatly in favour of the French hero, was rather
staggered by this audacious theory. Michel Ardan appeared to see it.
"You do not seem convinced, my worthy hosts," he continued with an
amiable smile. "Well, let us reason a little. Do you know how long it
would take an express train to reach the moon? Three hundred days. Not
more. A journey of 86,410 leagues, but what is that? Not even nine times
round the earth, and there are very few sailors who have not done that
during their existence. Think, I shall be only ninety-eight hours on the
road! Ah, you imagine that the moon is a long way from the earth, and
that one must think twice before attempting the adventure! But what
would you say if I were going to Neptune, which gravitates at
1,147,000,000 leagues from the sun? That is a journey that very few
people could go, even if it only cost a farthing a mile! Even Baron
Rothschild would not have enough to take his ticket!"
This argument seemed greatly to please the assembly; besides, Michel
Ardan, full of his subject, grew superbly eloquent; he felt he was
listened to, and resumed with admirable assurance--
"Well, my friends, this distance from Neptune to the sun is nothing
compared to that of the stars, some of which are billions of leagues
from the sun! And yet people speak of the distance that separates the
planets from the sun! Do you know what I think of this universe that
begins with the sun and ends at Neptune? Should you like to know my
theory? It is a very simple one. According to my opinion, the solar
universe is one solid homogeneous mass; the planets that compose it are
close together, crowd one another, and the space between them is only
the space that separates the molecules of the most compact
metal--silver, iron, or platinum! I have, therefore, the right to
affirm, and I will repeat it with a conviction you will all
share--distance is a vain word; distance does not exist!"
"Well said! Bravo! Hurrah!" cried the assembly with one voice,
electrified by the gesture and accent of the orator, and the boldness of
his conceptions.
"No!" cried J.T. Maston, more energetically than the others; "distance
does not exist!"
And, carried away by the violence of his movements and emotions he could
hardly contain, he nearly fell from the top of the platform to the
ground. But he succeeded in recovering his equilibrium, and thus avoided
a fall that would have brutally proved distance not to be a vain word.
Then the speech of the distinguished orator resumed its course.
"My friends," said he, "I think that this question is now solved. If I
have not convinced you all it is because I have been timid in my
demonstrations, feeble in my arguments, and you must set it down to my
theoretic ignorance. However that may be, I repeat, the distance from
the earth to her satellite is really very unimportant and unworthy to
occupy a serious mind. I do not think I am advancing too much in saying
that soon a service of trains will be established by projectiles, in
which the journey from the earth to the moon will be comfortably
accomplished. There will be no shocks nor running off the lines to fear,
and the goal will be reached rapidly, without fatigue, in a straight
line, 'as the crow flies.' Before twenty years are over, half the earth
will have visited the moon!"
"Three cheers for Michel Ardan!" cried the assistants, even those least
convinced.
"Three cheers for Barbicane!" modestly answered the orator.
This act of gratitude towards the promoter of the enterprise was greeted
with unanimous applause.
"Now, my friends," resumed Michel Ardan, "if you have any questions to
ask me you will evidently embarrass me, but still I will endeavour to
answer you."
Until now the president of the Gun Club had reason to be very satisfied
with the discussion. It had rolled upon speculative theories, upon which
Michel Ardan, carried away by his lively imagination, had shown himself
very brilliant. He must, therefore, be prevented from deviating towards
practical questions, which he would doubtless not come out of so well.
Barbicane made haste to speak, and asked his new friend if he thought
that the moon or the planets were inhabited.
"That is a great problem, my worthy president," answered the orator,
smiling; "still, if I am not mistaken, men of great intelligence--Plutarch,
Swedenborg, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and many others--answered in the
affirmative. If I answered from a natural philosophy point of view I
should do the same--I should say to myself that nothing useless exists
in this world, and, answering your question by another, friend
Barbicane, I should affirm that if the planets are inhabitable, either
they are inhabited, they have been, or they will be."
"Very well," cried the first ranks of spectators, whose opinion had the
force of law for the others.
"It is impossible to answer with more logic and justice," said the
president of the Gun Club. "The question, therefore, comes to this: 'Are
the planets inhabitable?' I think so, for my part."
"And I--I am certain of it," answered Michel Ardan.
"Still," replied one of the assistants, "there are arguments against the
inhabitability of the worlds. In most of them it is evident that the
principles of life must be modified. Thus, only to speak of the planets,
the people must be burnt up in some and frozen in others according as
they are a long or short distance from the sun."
"I regret," answered Michel Ardan, "not to know my honourable opponent
personally. His objection has its value, but I think it may be combated
with some success, like all those of which the habitability of worlds
has been the object. If I were a physician I should say that if there
were less caloric put in motion in the planets nearest to the sun, and
more, on the contrary, in the distant planets, this simple phenomenon
would suffice to equalise the heat and render the temperature of these
worlds bearable to beings organised like we are. If I were a naturalist
I should tell him, after many illustrious _savants_, that Nature
furnishes us on earth with examples of animals living in very different
conditions of habitability; that fish breathe in a medium mortal to the
other animals; that amphibians have a double existence difficult to
explain; that certain inhabitants of the sea live in the greatest
depths, and support there, without being crushed, pressures of fifty or
sixty atmospheres; that some aquatic insects, insensible to the
temperature, are met with at the same time in springs of boiling water
and in the frozen plains of the Polar Ocean--in short, there are in
nature many means of action, often incomprehensible, but no less real.
If I were a chemist I should say that aërolites--bodies evidently formed
away from our terrestrial globe--have when analysed, revealed
indisputable traces of carbon, a substance that owes its origin solely
to organised beings, and which, according to Reichenbach's experiments,
must necessarily have been 'animalised.' Lastly, if I were a theologian
I should say that Divine Redemption, according to St. Paul, seems
applicable not only to the earth but to all the celestial bodies. But I
am neither a theologian, chemist, naturalist, nor natural philosopher.
So, in my perfect ignorance of the great laws that rule the universe, I
can only answer, 'I do not know if the heavenly bodies are inhabited,
and, as I do not know, I am going to see!'"
Did the adversary of Michel Ardan's theories hazard any further
arguments? It is impossible to say, for the frantic cries of the crowd
would have prevented any opinion from being promulgated. When silence
was again restored, even in the most distant groups, the triumphant
orator contented himself with adding the following considerations:--
"You will think, gentlemen, that I have hardly touched upon this grave
question. I am not here to give you an instructive lecture upon this
vast subject. There is another series of arguments in favour of the
heavenly bodies being inhabited; I do not look upon that. Allow me only
to insist upon one point. To the people who maintain that the planets
are not inhabited you must answer, 'You may be right if it is
demonstrated that the earth is the best of possible worlds; but it is
not so, notwithstanding Voltaire.' It has only one satellite, whilst
Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune have several at their service, an
advantage that is not to be disdained. But that which now renders the
earth an uncomfortable place of abode is the inclination of its axis
upon its orbit. Hence the inequality of day and night; hence the
unfortunate diversity of seasons. Upon our miserable spheroid it is
always either too warm or too cold; we are frozen in winter and roasted
in summer; it is the planet of colds, rheumatism, and consumption,
whilst on the surface of Jupiter, for instance, where the axis has only
a very slight inclination, the inhabitants can enjoy invariable
temperature. There is the perpetual spring, summer, autumn, and winter
zone; each 'Jovian' may choose the climate that suits him, and may
shelter himself all his life from the variations of the temperature. You
will doubtless agree to this superiority of Jupiter over our planet
without speaking of its years, which each lasts twelve years! What is
more, it is evident to me that, under these auspices, and under such
marvellous conditions of existence, the inhabitants of that fortunate
world are superior beings--that _savants_ are more learned, artists more
artistic, the wicked less wicked, and the good are better. Alas! what is
wanting to our spheroid to reach this perfection is very little!--an
axis of rotation less inclined on the plane of its orbit."
"Well!" cried an impetuous voice, "let us unite our efforts, invent
machines, and rectify the earth's axis!"
Thunders of applause greeted this proposition, the author of which could
be no other than J.T. Maston. It is probable that the fiery secretary
had been carried away by his instincts as engineer to venture such a
proposition; but it must be said, for it is the truth, many encouraged
him with their cries, and doubtless, if they had found the resting-point
demanded by Archimedes, the Americans would have constructed a lever
capable of raising the world and redressing its axis. But this point was
wanting to these bold mechanicians.
Nevertheless, this eminently practical idea had enormous success: the
discussion was suspended for a good quarter of an hour, and long, very
long afterwards, they talked in the United States of America of the
proposition so energetically enunciated by the perpetual secretary of
the Gun Club.