This scientific dispute lasted so long that it made Michel very impatient.

"Now, gentlemen cosines, will you cease to throw parabolas and hyperbolas

at each other's heads? I want to understand the only interesting question

in the whole affair. We shall follow one or other of these curves? Good.

But where will they lead us to?"

"Nowhere," replied Nicholl.

"How, nowhere?"

"Evidently," said Barbicane, "they are open curves, which may be prolonged

indefinitely."

"Ah, savants!" cried Michel; "and what are either the one or the other

to us from the moment we know that they equally lead us into infinite

space?"

Barbicane and Nicholl could not forbear smiling. They had just been

creating "art for art's sake." Never had so idle a question been raised

at such an inopportune moment. The sinister truth remained that, whether

hyperbolically or parabolically borne away, the projectile would never

again meet either the earth or the moon.

What would become of these bold travellers in the immediate future? If

they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of thirst, in some days,

when the gas failed, they would die from want of air, unless the cold

had killed them first. Still, important as it was to economize the gas,

the excessive lowness of the surrounding temperature obliged them to

consume a certain quantity. Strictly speaking, they could do without its

_light_, but not without its _heat_. Fortunately the caloric generated by

Reiset's and Regnaut's apparatus raised the temperature of the interior

of the projectile a little, and without much expenditure they were able

to keep it bearable.

But observations had now become very difficult. The dampness of the

projectile was condensed on the windows and congealed immediately. This

cloudiness had to be dispersed continually. In any case they might hope

to be able to discover some phenomena of the highest interest.

But up to this time the disc remained dumb and dark. It did not answer

the multiplicity of questions put by these ardent minds; a matter which

drew this reflection from Michel, apparently a just one,—

"If ever we begin this journey over again, we shall do well to choose

the time when the moon is at the full."

"Certainly," said Nicholl, "that circumstance will be more favourable.

I allow that the moon, immersed in the sun's rays, will not be visible

during the transit, but instead we should see the earth, which would

be full. And what is more, if we were drawn round the moon, as at this

moment, we should at least have the advantage of seeing the invisible

part of her disc magnificently lit."

"Well said, Nicholl," replied Michel Ardan. "What do you think, Barbicane?"

"I think this," answered the grave president: "If ever we begin this

journey again, we shall start at the same time and under the same

conditions. Suppose we had attained our end, would it not have been

better to have found continents in broad daylight than a country plunged

in utter darkness? Would not our first installation have been made under

better circumstances? Yes, evidently. As to the _invisible_ side, we

could have visited it in our exploring expeditions on the lunar globe.

So that the time of the full moon was well chosen. But we ought to have

arrived at the end; and in order to have so arrived, we ought to have

suffered no deviation on the road."

"I have nothing to say to that," answered Michel Ardan. "Here is, however,

a good opportunity lost of observing the other side of the moon."

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 towards 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 towards the invisible disc as if it would fall upon it.

Was it falling? Were the travellers 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 towards it and not falling normally on the surface of the moon.

"A volcano! it is a volcano in action!" cried Nicholl; "a disembowelling

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 an 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 favourable 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 consequences 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.

Illustration: A PREY TO FRIGHTFUL TERROR.

"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 2000

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 travellers! 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 towards 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 amidst 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

colours 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 colour, was there intermingled.

There were rays of yellow and pale yellow, red, green, grey—a crown

of fireworks of all colours. 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

amidst 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?

Illustration: WHAT A SIGHT.

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 unforeseen

one. Who would have thought of such a rencontre with meteors? These

erring bodies might create serious perils for the travellers. 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 for ever

closed against human curiosity!

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

following its curvilinear direction round the moon. Had its course been

again 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

supposed 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.

Illustration: "THE SUN!"

Neither of the travellers 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 vapour.

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

his glass, sighted towards 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 colour 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.

Illustration: "LIGHT AND HEAT; ALL LIFE IS CONTAINED IN THEM."

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 travellers 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 Doerfel 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 Doerfel 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

travellers there reappeared that original aspect of the lunar landscapes,

raw in tone, without gradation of colours, and without degrees of shadow,

roughly black and white, from the want of diffusion of light.

Illustration: HE DISTINGUISHED ALL THIS.

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 levelling 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 ardour, 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 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 lat., and 16° east long. 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 equalling 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 whilst 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 mountain 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 lat., and 15° east long. Its height is estimated at 22,950 feet.

The travellers, at a distance of twenty-four miles (reduced to four by

their glasses), could admire this vast crater in its entirety.

Illustration: CAN YOU PICTURE TO YOURSELVES?

"Terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbicane, "are but molehills 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 those

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 centre 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 centre 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 splendour. 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 lat., and 12° east

long. Its centre 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 centre and crowned by radiating beams.

What this incomparable mountain really is, with all the projections

converging towards 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 splendour. Then all shadows disappear,

the foreshortening of perspective disappears, and all proofs become

white—a disagreeable fact; for this strange region would have been

marvellous 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 travellers 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 travellers 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 1500 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 all 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 centre, 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 towards 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, towards the

west, covered the Sea of Clouds and the Sea of Humours 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 centre, 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 come 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 travellers, whom such a sight could never weary, admire

the splendours 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 travellers

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.

Illustration: A VIOLENT CONTRACTION OF THE LUNAR CRUST.

"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 alterations 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 honourable 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

or animal, have had their day, and are now for ever 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; vapour deposited itself in the shape of clouds; this

natural screen tempered the ardour 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

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 travellers' 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 towards 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 for ever 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 for ever 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, the projectile agrees with me; but let us do all that is humanly

possible to do to fall somewhere, even if only on the moon."

Illustration: AROUND THE PROJECTILE WERE THE OBJECTS WHICH

HAD BEEN THROWN OUT.

"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 in space, and must no longer consider

specific weight."

"Very well," cried Michel Ardan in a decided voice; "then there remains

but one thing to do."

"What is it?" said 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, observations

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

splendour amidst 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 round 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 towards

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 downright 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 towards the earth. It is probable that at the point

of equal attraction, its conical cap will be directed rigidly towards

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 that 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 every thing 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

travellers 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 travelled 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."

Illustration: "THESE PRACTICAL PEOPLE HAVE SOMETIMES MOST

OPPORTUNE IDEAS."

"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 base supported

the captain's barytone.

"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 towards 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 travellers 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 for ever 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 honourable 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 dénouement 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 towards 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

favour of the travellers. If its speed was utterly annulled on this dead

point, a decided movement towards 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 travellers 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.

Illustration: ARDEN APPLIED THE LIGHTED MATCH.

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 amidst 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 the 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 result 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 favourable 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 3508 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 fore-wheel, who was

superintending the operation.

The captain and the lieutenant mounted the quarter-deck. "What depth have

we?" asked the captain.

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

lieutenant, entering it in his note-book.

"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 New Mexico.

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

Their 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 honourable 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 fervour 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 favourable spot for the

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

coast of America.

Illustration: "I FANCY I SEE THEM."

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 Oceania 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 lat., and 41° 37' west long., 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 towards 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 travellers 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 amidst volcanic rubbish, Captain Nicholl beginning

his levelling 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 gigantic 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

travellers? 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 towards 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; 1670 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!"

Illustration: A FEW FEET NEARER.

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 that meteor was

the projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travellers 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."

"Burnt!" 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 neighbouring coast had no anchorage on 27° lat. 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 lat. and 41° 37' west long."

"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-north-east, 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-oared 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; the fourth to the Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory,

Massachusetts.

It was worded as follows:—

"In 20° 7' north lat., and 41° 37' west long., on the 12th of December,

at 17 past one in the morning, the projectile of the Columbiad fell

into the Pacific. Send instructions.—Blomsberry, Commander

'Susquehanna.'"

Five minutes afterwards 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 despatch, 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 despatch, so decidedly 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 travellers; 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 favour, 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 lat., and (taking into consideration the

time that had elapsed, and the rotary motion of the earth) between the

forty-first and the forty-second degree 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 despatch from San Francisco,

the Honourable 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

in 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 observations, 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 280 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 unforeseen 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 despatch. It was the commander of the

"Susquehanna's" telegram.

Belfast tore the envelope and read, and uttered a cry.

"What!" said J. T. Maston.

Illustration: THE UNFORTUNATE MAN HAD DISAPPEARED.

"The projectile!"

"Well!"

"Has fallen to the earth!"

Another cry, this time a perfect howl, answered him. He turned towards J.

T. Maston. The unfortunate man, imprudently leaning over the metal tube,

had disappeared in the immense telescope. A fall of 280 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 towards 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 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 travellers. 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 aluminium projectile only weighed 19,250 lbs., 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 travellers

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 reconnoitre the situation

of his courageous friends.

But in spite of all 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 travellers.

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 north-easterly

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. Whilst 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 to 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."

Illustration: THE DESCENT BEGAN.

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 N.E.,

resumed her course to the bay of San Francisco.

It was ten in the morning; the corvette was under half steam, as if

regretting to leave the spot where the catastrophe had taken place, when

a sailor, perched on the maintop 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 towards 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 every one around him.

"What is it?"

"Come, speak!"

"It is, simpletons," howled the terrible Secretary, "it is that the

projectile only weighs 19,250 lbs.!"

"Well?"

"And that it displaces twenty-eight tons, or in other words 56,000 lbs.,

and that consequently _it floats!_"

Ah! what stress the worthy man 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 whilst 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!

Illustration: WHITE ALL BARBICANE.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE END

We may remember the intense sympathy which had accompanied the travellers

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 towards 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 travellers 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 State 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

place 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 travelling 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 favour, 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

travelled at a speed of 160 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 travelled in this way through the east

of the Union, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine,

and New Hampshire; the north and the 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 centre 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 travelling 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.

Illustration: THE APOTHEOSIS WAS WORTHY OF THE THREE HEROES.

Thus, some time after the return of the travellers, the public received

with marked favour 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 Honourable Harry Trolloppe, judge commissioner,

and Francis Drayton, magistrate, were nominated beforehand!

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor inconsistencies in the spelling of character names have been

regularized.

The spelling of the names of historical scientists "Bœer and Moedler"

have been regularized to be consistent as possible with the author's

inconsistent spelling, which today are spelled variously but perhaps

most commonly "Beer and Moedler".

Obvious minor typesetting errors have been silently corrected.