Part 6 out of 7



had turned toward the moon's surface, and was so held by a
perpendicular passing through its axis. The attraction, that is
to say the weight, had brought about this alteration. The heaviest
part of the projectile inclined toward the invisible disc as if it
would fall upon it.

Was it falling? Were the travelers attaining that much desired end?
No. And the observation of a sign-point, quite inexplicable in
itself, showed Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing the
moon, and that it had shifted by following an almost concentric curve.

This point of mark was a luminous brightness, which Nicholl
sighted suddenly, on the limit of the horizon formed by the
black disc. This point could not be confounded with a star.
It was a reddish incandescence which increased by degrees, a
decided proof that the projectile was shifting toward it and
not falling normally on the surface of the moon.

"A volcano! it is a volcano in action!" cried Nicholl; "a
disemboweling of the interior fires of the moon! That world is
not quite extinguished."

"Yes, an eruption," replied Barbicane, who was carefully
studying the phenomenon through his night glass. "What should
it be, if not a volcano?"

"But, then," said Michel Ardan, "in order to maintain that
combustion, there must be air. So the atmosphere does surround
that part of the moon."

"Perhaps so," replied Barbicane, "but not necessarily.

The volcano, by the decomposition of certain substances, can
provide its own oxygen, and thus throw flames into space. It seems
to me that the deflagration, by the intense brilliancy of the
substances in combustion, is produced in pure oxygen. We must
not be in a hurry to proclaim the existence of a lunar atmosphere."

The fiery mountain must have been situated about the 45@ south
latitude on the invisible part of the disc; but, to Barbicane's
great displeasure, the curve which the projectile was describing
was taking it far from the point indicated by the eruption.
Thus he could not determine its nature exactly. Half an hour
after being sighted, this luminous point had disappeared behind
the dark horizon; but the verification of this phenomenon was
of considerable consequence in their selenographic studies.
It proved that all heat had not yet disappeared from the bowels
of this globe; and where heat exists, who can affirm that the
vegetable kingdom, nay, even the animal kingdom itself, has not
up to this time resisted all destructive influences? The existence
of this volcano in eruption, unmistakably seen by these earthly
savants, would doubtless give rise to many theories favorable
to the grave question of the habitability of the moon.

Barbicane allowed himself to be carried away by these reflections.
He forgot himself in a deep reverie in which the mysterious
destiny of the lunar world was uppermost. He was seeking to
combine together the facts observed up to that time, when a new
incident recalled him briskly to reality. This incident was more
than a cosmical phenomenon; it was a threatened danger, the
consequence of which might be disastrous in the extreme.

Suddenly, in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness, an
enormous mass appeared. It was like a moon, but an incandescent
moon whose brilliancy was all the more intolerable as it cut
sharply on the frightful darkness of space. This mass, of a
circular form, threw a light which filled the projectile.
The forms of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan, bathed in
its white sheets, assumed that livid spectral appearance which
physicians produce with the fictitious light of alcohol
impregnated with salt.

"By Jove!" cried Michel Ardan, "we are hideous. What is that
ill-conditioned moon?"

"A meteor," replied Barbicane.

"A meteor burning in space?"

"Yes."

This shooting globe suddenly appearing in shadow at a distance
of at most 200 miles, ought, according to Barbicane, to have a
diameter of 2,000 yards. It advanced at a speed of about one
mile and a half per second. It cut the projectile's path and
must reach it in some minutes. As it approached it grew to
enormous proportions.

Imagine, if possible, the situation of the travelers! It is
impossible to describe it. In spite of their courage, their
sang-froid, their carelessness of danger, they were mute,
motionless with stiffened limbs, a prey to frightful terror.
Their projectile, the course of which they could not alter, was
rushing straight on this ignited mass, more intense than the
open mouth of an oven. It seemed as though they were being
precipitated toward an abyss of fire.

Barbicane had seized the hands of his two companions, and all
three looked through their half-open eyelids upon that asteroid
heated to a white heat. If thought was not destroyed within
them, if their brains still worked amid all this awe, they must
have given themselves up for lost.

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the meteor (to them
two centuries of anguish) the projectile seemed almost about to
strike it, when the globe of fire burst like a bomb, but without
making any noise in that void where sound, which is but the
agitation of the layers of air, could not be generated.

Nicholl uttered a cry, and he and his companions rushed to
the scuttle. What a sight! What pen can describe it?
What palette is rich enough in colors to reproduce so magnificent
a spectacle?

It was like the opening of a crater, like the scattering of an
immense conflagration. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up
and irradiated space with their fires. Every size, every color,
was there intermingled. There were rays of yellow and pale
yellow, red, green, gray-- a crown of fireworks of all colors.
Of the enormous and much-dreaded globe there remained nothing
but these fragments carried in all directions, now become
asteroids in their turn, some flaming like a sword, some
surrounded by a whitish cloud, and others leaving behind them
trains of brilliant cosmical dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed and struck each other,
scattering still smaller fragments, some of which struck
the projectile. Its left scuttle was even cracked by a
violent shock. It seemed to be floating amid a hail of
howitzer shells, the smallest of which might destroy
it instantly.

The light which saturated the ether was so wonderfully intense,
that Michel, drawing Barbicane and Nicholl to his window,
exclaimed, "The invisible moon, visible at last!"

And through a luminous emanation, which lasted some seconds, the
whole three caught a glimpse of that mysterious disc which the eye
of man now saw for the first time. What could they distinguish
at a distance which they could not estimate? Some lengthened
bands along the disc, real clouds formed in the midst of a very
confined atmosphere, from which emerged not only all the mountains,
but also projections of less importance; its circles, its yawning
craters, as capriciously placed as on the visible surface.
Then immense spaces, no longer arid plains, but real seas, oceans,
widely distributed, reflecting on their liquid surface all the
dazzling magic of the fires of space; and, lastly, on the surface
of the continents, large dark masses, looking like immense forests
under the rapid illumination of a brilliance.

Was it an illusion, a mistake, an optical illusion? Could they
give a scientific assent to an observation so superficially obtained?
Dared they pronounce upon the question of its habitability after
so slight a glimpse of the invisible disc?

But the lightnings in space subsided by degrees; its accidental
brilliancy died away; the asteroids dispersed in different
directions and were extinguished in the distance.

The ether returned to its accustomed darkness; the stars, eclipsed
for a moment, again twinkled in the firmament, and the disc, so
hastily discerned, was again buried in impenetrable night.





CHAPTER XVI


THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE


The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, and a very
unforseen one. Who would have thought of such an encounter
with meteors? These erring bodies might create serious perils
for the travelers. They were to them so many sandbanks upon
that sea of ether which, less fortunate than sailors, they could
not escape. But did these adventurers complain of space? No, not
since nature had given them the splendid sight of a cosmical
meteor bursting from expansion, since this inimitable firework,
which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lit up for some seconds the
invisible glory of the moon. In that flash, continents, seas,
and forests had become visible to them. Did an atmosphere,
then, bring to this unknown face its life-giving atoms?
Questions still insoluble, and forever closed against
human curiousity!

It was then half-past three in the afternoon. The projectile
was following its curvilinear direction round the moon. Had its
course again been altered by the meteor? It was to be feared so.
But the projectile must describe a curve unalterably determined
by the laws of mechanical reasoning. Barbicane was inclined to
believe that this curve would be rather a parabola than a hyperbola.
But admitting the parabola, the projectile must quickly have
passed through the cone of shadow projected into space opposite
the sun. This cone, indeed, is very narrow, the angular diameter
of the moon being so little when compared with the diameter of
the orb of day; and up to this time the projectile had been
floating in this deep shadow. Whatever had been its speed
(and it could not have been insignificant), its period of
occultation continued. That was evident, but perhaps that would
not have been the case in a supposedly rigidly parabolical
trajectory-- a new problem which tormented Barbicane's brain,
imprisoned as he was in a circle of unknowns which he could
not unravel.

Neither of the travelers thought of taking an instant's repose.
Each one watched for an unexpected fact, which might throw some
new light on their uranographic studies. About five o'clock,
Michel Ardan distributed, under the name of dinner, some pieces
of bread and cold meat, which were quickly swallowed without
either of them abandoning their scuttle, the glass of which was
incessantly encrusted by the condensation of vapor.

About forty-five minutes past five in the evening, Nicholl,
armed with his glass, sighted toward the southern border of the
moon, and in the direction followed by the projectile, some
bright points cut upon the dark shield of the sky. They looked
like a succession of sharp points lengthened into a tremulous line.
They were very bright. Such appeared the terminal line of the
moon when in one of her octants.

They could not be mistaken. It was no longer a simple meteor.
This luminous ridge had neither color nor motion. Nor was it a
volcano in eruption. And Barbicane did not hesitate to
pronounce upon it.

"The sun!" he exclaimed.

"What! the sun?" answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.

"Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself lighting up the
summit of the mountains situated on the southern borders of
the moon. We are evidently nearing the south pole."

"After having passed the north pole," replied Michel. "We have
made the circuit of our satellite, then?"

"Yes, my good Michel."

"Then, no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more open
curves to fear?"

"No, but a closed curve."

"Which is called----"

"An ellipse. Instead of losing itself in interplanetary space,
it is probable that the projectile will describe an elliptical
orbit around the moon."

"Indeed!"

"And that it will become her satellite."

"Moon of the moon!" cried Michel Ardan.

"Only, I would have you observe, my worthy friend," replied
Barbicane, "that we are none the less lost for that."

"Yes, in another manner, and much more pleasantly," answered the
careless Frenchman with his most amiable smile.





CHAPTER XVII


TYCHO


At six in the evening the projectile passed the south pole at
less than forty miles off, a distance equal to that already
reached at the north pole. The elliptical curve was being
rigidly carried out.

At this moment the travelers once more entered the blessed rays
of the sun. They saw once more those stars which move slowly
from east to west. The radiant orb was saluted by a triple hurrah.
With its light it also sent heat, which soon pierced the metal walls.
The glass resumed its accustomed appearance. The layers of ice
melted as if by enchantment; and immediately, for economy's sake,
the gas was put out, the air apparatus alone consuming its
usual quantity.

"Ah!" said Nicholl, "these rays of heat are good. With what
impatience must the Selenites wait the reappearance of the orb
of day."

"Yes," replied Michel Ardan, "imbibing as it were the brilliant
ether, light and heat, all life is contained in them."

At this moment the bottom of the projectile deviated somewhat
from the lunar surface, in order to follow the slightly
lengthened elliptical orbit. From this point, had the earth
been at the full, Barbicane and his companions could have
seen it, but immersed in the sun's irradiation she was
quite invisible. Another spectacle attracted their attention,
that of the southern part of the moon, brought by the glasses
to within 450 yards. They did not again leave the scuttles,
and noted every detail of this fantastical continent.

Mounts Doerful and Leibnitz formed two separate groups very near
the south pole. The first group extended from the pole to the
eighty-fourth parallel, on the eastern part of the orb; the
second occupied the eastern border, extending from the 65@ of
latitude to the pole.

On their capriciously formed ridge appeared dazzling sheets, as
mentioned by Pere Secchi. With more certainty than the
illustrious Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to recognize
their nature.

"They are snow," he exclaimed.

"Snow?" repeated Nicholl.

"Yes, Nicholl, snow; the surface of which is deeply frozen.
See how they reflect the luminous rays. Cooled lava would never
give out such intense reflection. There must then be water,
there must be air on the moon. As little as you please, but the
fact can no longer be contested." No, it could not be. And if
ever Barbicane should see the earth again, his notes will bear
witness to this great fact in his selenographic observations.

These mountains of Doerful and Leibnitz rose in the midst of
plains of a medium extent, which were bounded by an indefinite
succession of circles and annular ramparts. These two chains
are the only ones met with in this region of circles.
Comparatively but slightly marked, they throw up here and there
some sharp points, the highest summit of which attains an
altitude of 24,600 feet.

But the projectile was high above all this landscape, and the
projections disappeared in the intense brilliancy of the disc.
And to the eyes of the travelers there reappeared that original
aspect of the lunar landscapes, raw in tone, without gradation
of colors, and without degrees of shadow, roughly black and
white, from the want of diffusion of light.

But the sight of this desolate world did not fail to captivate
them by its very strangeness. They were moving over this region
as if they had been borne on the breath of some storm, watching
heights defile under their feet, piercing the cavities with their
eyes, going down into the rifts, climbing the ramparts, sounding
these mysterious holes, and leveling all cracks. But no trace
of vegetation, no appearance of cities; nothing but stratification,
beds of lava, overflowings polished like immense mirrors,
reflecting the sun's rays with overpowering brilliancy.
Nothing belonging to a living world-- everything to a dead
world, where avalanches, rolling from the summits of the mountains,
would disperse noiselessly at the bottom of the abyss, retaining
the motion, but wanting the sound. In any case it was the image
of death, without its being possible even to say that life had ever
existed there.

Michel Ardan, however, thought he recognized a heap of ruins,
to which he drew Barbicane's attention. It was about the 80th
parallel, in 30@ longitude. This heap of stones, rather
regularly placed, represented a vast fortress, overlooking a
long rift, which in former days had served as a bed to the
rivers of prehistorical times. Not far from that, rose to a
height of 17,400 feet the annular mountain of Short, equal to
the Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his accustomed ardor,
maintained "the evidences" of his fortress. Beneath it he
discerned the dismantled ramparts of a town; here the still
intact arch of a portico, there two or three columns lying under
their base; farther on, a succession of arches which must have
supported the conduit of an aqueduct; in another part the sunken
pillars of a gigantic bridge, run into the thickest parts of
the rift. He distinguished all this, but with so much imagination
in his glance, and through glasses so fantastical, that we must
mistrust his observation. But who could affirm, who would dare
to say, that the amiable fellow did not really see that which
his two companions would not see?

Moments were too precious to be sacrificed in idle discussion.
The selenite city, whether imaginary or not, had already
disappeared afar off. The distance of the projectile from the
lunar disc was on the increase, and the details of the soil were
being lost in a confused jumble. The reliefs, the circles,
the craters, and the plains alone remained, and still showed
their boundary lines distinctly. At this moment, to the left,
lay extended one of the finest circles of lunar orography,
one of the curiosities of this continent. It was Newton,
which Barbicane recognized without trouble, by referring to
the Mappa Selenographica.

Newton is situated in exactly 77@ south latitude, and 16@
east longitude. It forms an annular crater, the ramparts of
which, rising to a height of 21,300 feet, seemed to be impassable.

Barbicane made his companions observe that the height of this
mountain above the surrounding plain was far from equaling the
depth of its crater. This enormous hole was beyond all
measurement, and formed a gloomy abyss, the bottom of which the
sun's rays could never reach. There, according to Humboldt,
reigns utter darkness, which the light of the sun and the earth
cannot break. Mythologists could well have made it the mouth of hell.

"Newton," said Barbicane, "is the most perfect type of these
annular mountains, of which the earth possesses no sample.
They prove that the moon's formation, by means of cooling, is
due to violent causes; for while, under the pressure of internal
fires the reliefs rise to considerable height, the depths withdraw
far below the lunar level."

"I do not dispute the fact," replied Michel Ardan.

Some minutes after passing Newton, the projectile directly
overlooked the annular mountains of Moret. It skirted at some
distance the summits of Blancanus, and at about half-past seven
in the evening reached the circle of Clavius.

This circle, one of the most remarkable of the disc, is situated
in 58@ south latitude, and 15@ east longitude. Its height is
estimated at 22,950 feet. The travelers, at a distance of
twenty-four miles (reduced to four by their glasses) could
admire this vast crater in its entirety.

"Terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbicane, "are but mole-hills
compared with those of the moon. Measuring the old craters
formed by the first eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, we find them
little more than three miles in breadth. In France the circle
of Cantal measures six miles across; at Ceyland the circle of
the island is forty miles, which is considered the largest on
the globe. What are these diameters against that of Clavius,
which we overlook at this moment?"

"What is its breadth?" asked Nicholl.

"It is 150 miles," replied Barbicane. "This circle is certainly
the most important on the moon, but many others measure 150,
100, or 75 miles."

"Ah! my friends," exclaimed Michel, "can you picture to
yourselves what this now peaceful orb of night must have been
when its craters, filled with thunderings, vomited at the same
time smoke and tongues of flame. What a wonderful spectacle
then, and now what decay! This moon is nothing more than a thin
carcase of fireworks, whose squibs, rockets, serpents, and suns,
after a superb brilliancy, have left but sadly broken cases.
Who can say the cause, the reason, the motive force of
these cataclysms?"

Barbicane was not listening to Michel Ardan; he was
contemplating these ramparts of Clavius, formed by large
mountains spread over several miles. At the bottom of the
immense cavity burrowed hundreds of small extinguished craters,
riddling the soil like a colander, and overlooked by a peak
15,000 feet high.

Around the plain appeared desolate. Nothing so arid as these
reliefs, nothing so sad as these ruins of mountains, and (if we
may so express ourselves) these fragments of peaks and mountains
which strewed the soil. The satellite seemed to have burst at
this spot.

The projectile was still advancing, and this movement did
not subside. Circles, craters, and uprooted mountains succeeded
each other incessantly. No more plains; no more seas. A never
ending Switzerland and Norway. And lastly, in the canter of
this region of crevasses, the most splendid mountain on the
lunar disc, the dazzling Tycho, in which posterity will ever
preserve the name of the illustrious Danish astronomer.

In observing the full moon in a cloudless sky no one has failed
to remark this brilliant point of the southern hemisphere.
Michel Ardan used every metaphor that his imagination could
supply to designate it by. To him this Tycho was a focus of
light, a center of irradiation, a crater vomiting rays. It was
the tire of a brilliant wheel, an asteria enclosing the disc
with its silver tentacles, an enormous eye filled with flames,
a glory carved for Pluto's head, a star launched by the
Creator's hand, and crushed against the face of the moon!

Tycho forms such a concentration of light that the inhabitants
of the earth can see it without glasses, though at a distance
of 240,000 miles! Imagine, then, its intensity to the eye of
observers placed at a distance of only fifty miles! Seen through
this pure ether, its brilliancy was so intolerable that Barbicane
and his friends were obliged to blacken their glasses with the gas
smoke before they could bear the splendor. Then silent, scarcely
uttering an interjection of admiration, they gazed, they contemplated.
All their feelings, all their impressions, were concentrated in that
look, as under any violent emotion all life is concentrated at the heart.

Tycho belongs to the system of radiating mountains, like
Aristarchus and Copernicus; but it is of all the most complete
and decided, showing unquestionably the frightful volcanic
action to which the formation of the moon is due. Tycho is
situated in 43@ south latitude, and 12@ east longitude. Its center
is occupied by a crater fifty miles broad. It assumes a slightly
elliptical form, and is surrounded by an enclosure of annular
ramparts, which on the east and west overlook the outer plain from
a height of 15,000 feet. It is a group of Mont Blancs, placed
round one common center and crowned by radiating beams.

What this incomparable mountain really is, with all the
projections converging toward it, and the interior excrescences
of its crater, photography itself could never represent.
Indeed, it is during the full moon that Tycho is seen in all
its splendor. Then all shadows disappear, the foreshortening
of perspective disappears, and all proofs become white-- a
disagreeable fact: for this strange region would have been
marvelous if reproduced with photographic exactness. It is
but a group of hollows, craters, circles, a network of crests;
then, as far as the eye could see, a whole volcanic network
cast upon this encrusted soil. One can then understand that
the bubbles of this central eruption have kept their first form.
Crystallized by cooling, they have stereotyped that aspect
which the moon formerly presented when under the Plutonian forces.

The distance which separated the travelers from the annular
summits of Tycho was not so great but that they could catch
the principal details. Even on the causeway forming the
fortifications of Tycho, the mountains hanging on to the
interior and exterior sloping flanks rose in stories like
gigantic terraces. They appeared to be higher by 300 or 400
feet to the west than to the east. No system of terrestrial
encampment could equal these natural fortifications. A town
built at the bottom of this circular cavity would have been
utterly inaccessible.

Inaccessible and wonderfully extended over this soil covered
with picturesque projections! Indeed, nature had not left the
bottom of this crater flat and empty. It possessed its own
peculiar orography, a mountainous system, making it a world
in itself. The travelers could distinguish clearly cones,
central hills, remarkable positions of the soil, naturally
placed to receive the chefs-d'oeuvre of Selenite architecture.
There was marked out the place for a temple, here the ground of a
forum, on this spot the plan of a palace, in another the plateau
for a citadel; the whole overlooked by a central mountain of
1,500 feet. A vast circle, in which ancient Rome could have
been held in its entirety ten times over.

"Ah!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, enthusiastic at the sight; "what
a grand town might be constructed within that ring of mountains!
A quiet city, a peaceful refuge, beyond all human misery. How calm
and isolated those misanthropes, those haters of humanity might
live there, and all who have a distaste for social life!"

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





CHAPTER XVIII


GRAVE QUESTIONS


But the projectile had passed the enceinte of Tycho, and
Barbicane and his two companions watched with scrupulous
attention the brilliant rays which the celebrated mountain shed
so curiously over the horizon.

What was this radiant glory? What geological phenomenon had
designed these ardent beams? This question occupied Barbicane's mind.

Under his eyes ran in all directions luminous furrows, raised at
the edges and concave in the center, some twelve miles, others
thirty miles broad. These brilliant trains extended in some
places to within 600 miles of Tycho, and seemed to cover,
particularly toward the east, the northeast and the north, the
half of the southern hemisphere. One of these jets extended as
far as the circle of Neander, situated on the 40th meridian.
Another, by a slight curve, furrowed the "Sea of Nectar," breaking
against the chain of Pyrenees, after a circuit of 800 miles.
Others, toward the west, covered the "Sea of Clouds" and
the "Sea of Humors" with a luminous network. What was the
origin of these sparkling rays, which shone on the plains as
well as on the reliefs, at whatever height they might be?
All started from a common center, the crater of Tycho.
They sprang from him. Herschel attributed their brilliancy to
currents of lava congealed by the cold; an opinion, however,
which has not been generally adopted. Other astronomers have
seen in these inexplicable rays a kind of moraines, rows of
erratic blocks, which had been thrown up at the period of
Tycho's formation.

"And why not?" asked Nicholl of Barbicane, who was relating and
rejecting these different opinions.

"Because the regularity of these luminous lines, and the
violence necessary to carry volcanic matter to such distances,
is inexplicable."

"Eh! by Jove!" replied Michel Ardan, "it seems easy enough to me
to explain the origin of these rays."

"Indeed?" said Barbicane.

"Indeed," continued Michel. "It is enough to say that it is a
vast star, similar to that produced by a ball or a stone thrown
at a square of glass!"

"Well!" replied Barbicane, smiling. "And what hand would be
powerful enough to throw a ball to give such a shock as that?"

"The hand is not necessary," answered Nicholl, not at all
confounded; "and as to the stone, let us suppose it to be a comet."

"Ah! those much-abused comets!" exclaimed Barbicane. "My brave
Michel, your explanation is not bad; but your comet is useless.
The shock which produced that rent must have some from the
inside of the star. A violent contraction of the lunar crust,
while cooling, might suffice to imprint this gigantic star."

"A contraction! something like a lunar stomach-ache." said
Michel Ardan.

"Besides," added Barbicane, "this opinion is that of an English
savant, Nasmyth, and it seems to me to sufficiently explain the
radiation of these mountains."

"That Nasmyth was no fool!" replied Michel.

Long did the travelers, whom such a sight could never weary,
admire the splendors of Tycho. Their projectile, saturated with
luminous gleams in the double irradiation of sun and moon, must
have appeared like an incandescent globe. They had passed
suddenly from excessive cold to intense heat. Nature was thus
preparing them to become Selenites. Become Selenites! That idea
brought up once more the question of the habitability of the moon.
After what they had seen, could the travelers solve it? Would they
decide for or against it? Michel Ardan persuaded his two friends
to form an opinion, and asked them directly if they thought that
men and animals were represented in the lunar world.

"I think that we can answer," said Barbicane; "but according to
my idea the question ought not to be put in that form. I ask it
to be put differently."

"Put it your own way," replied Michel.

"Here it is," continued Barbicane. "The problem is a double one,
and requires a double solution. Is the moon habitable? Has the
moon ever been inhabitable?"

"Good!" replied Nicholl. "First let us see whether the moon
is habitable."

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

"And I answer in the negative," continued Barbicane. "In her
actual state, with her surrounding atmosphere certainly very
much reduced, her seas for the most part dried up, her
insufficient supply of water restricted, vegetation, sudden
alternations of cold and heat, her days and nights of 354
hours-- the moon does not seem habitable to me, nor does she
seem propitious to animal development, nor sufficient for the
wants of existence as we understand it."

"Agreed," replied Nicholl. "But is not the moon habitable for
creatures differently organized from ourselves?"

"That question is more difficult to answer, but I will try; and
I ask Nicholl if motion appears to him to be a necessary
result of life, whatever be its organization?"

"Without a doubt!" answered Nicholl.

"Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observed
the lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and that
nothing seemed to us to move on the moon's surface. The presence
of any kind of life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks,
such as divers buildings, and even by ruins. And what have
we seen? Everywhere and always the geological works of nature,
never the work of man. If, then, there exist representatives
of the animal kingdom on the moon, they must have fled to those
unfathomable cavities which the eye cannot reach; which I cannot
admit, for they must have left traces of their passage on those
plains which the atmosphere must cover, however slightly raised
it may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There remains but
one hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion, which is
life, is foreign."

"One might as well say, living creatures which do not live,"
replied Michel.

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

"Then we may form our opinion?" said Michel.

"Yes," replied Nicholl.

"Very well," continued Michel Ardan, "the Scientific Commission
assembled in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having
founded their argument on facts recently observed, decide
unanimously upon the question of the habitability of the moon--
`No! the moon is not habitable.'"

This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to his
notebook, where the process of the sitting of the 6th of
December may be seen.

"Now," said Nicholl, "let us attack the second question, an
indispensable complement of the first. I ask the honorable
commission, if the moon is not habitable, has she ever been
inhabited, Citizen Barbicane?"

"My friends," replied Barbicane, "I did not undertake this
journey in order to form an opinion on the past habitability of
our satellite; but I will add that our personal observations
only confirm me in this opinion. I believe, indeed I affirm,
that the moon has been inhabited by a human race organized like
our own; that she has produced animals anatomically formed like
the terrestrial animals: but I add that these races, human and
animal, have had their day, and are now forever extinct!"

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

"No!" said Barbicane decidedly, "but a world which has grown old
quicker, and whose formation and deformation have been more rapid.
Relatively, the organizing force of matter has been much more
violent in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the
terrestrial globe. The actual state of this cracked, twisted,
and burst disc abundantly proves this. The moon and the earth
were nothing but gaseous masses originally. These gases have
passed into a liquid state under different influences, and the
solid masses have been formed later. But most certainly our
sphere was still gaseous or liquid, when the moon was solidified
by cooling, and had become habitable."

"I believe it," said Nicholl.

"Then," continued Barbicane, "an atmosphere surrounded it, the
waters contained within this gaseous envelope could not evaporate.
Under the influence of air, water, light, solar heat, and central
heat, vegetation took possession of the continents prepared to
receive it, and certainly life showed itself about this period,
for nature does not expend herself in vain; and a world so
wonderfully formed for habitation must necessarily be inhabited."

"But," said Nicholl, "many phenomena inherent in our satellite
might cramp the expansion of the animal and vegetable kingdom.
For example, its days and nights of 354 hours?"

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

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

"Let us observe, my friends," continued Barbicane, "that if in
the actual state of the moon its long nights and long days
created differences of temperature insupportable to
organization, it was not so at the historical period of time.
The atmosphere enveloped the disc with a fluid mantle; vapor
deposited itself in the shape of clouds; this natural screen
tempered the ardor of the solar rays, and retained the
nocturnal radiation. Light, like heat, can diffuse itself in
the air; hence an equality between the influences which no longer
exists, now that atmosphere has almost entirely disappeared.
And now I am going to astonish you."

"Astonish us?" said Michel Ardan.

"I firmly believe that at the period when the moon was inhabited,
the nights and days did not last 354 hours!"

"And why?" asked Nicholl quickly.

"Because most probably then the rotary motion of the moon upon
her axis was not equal to her revolution, an equality which
presents each part of her disc during fifteen days to the action
of the solar rays."

"Granted," replied Nicholl, "but why should not these two
motions have been equal, as they are really so?"

"Because that equality has only been determined by
terrestrial attraction. And who can say that this attraction
was powerful enough to alter the motion of the moon at that
period when the earth was still fluid?"

"Just so," replied Nicholl; "and who can say that the moon has
always been a satellite of the earth?"

"And who can say," exclaimed Michel Ardan, "that the moon did
not exist before the earth?"

Their imaginations carried them away into an indefinite field
of hypothesis. Barbicane sought to restrain them.

"Those speculations are too high," said he; "problems
utterly insoluble. Do not let us enter upon them. Let us only
admit the insufficiency of the primordial attraction; and then
by the inequality of the two motions of rotation and revolution,
the days and nights could have succeeded each other on the moon
as they succeed each other on the earth. Besides, even without
these conditions, life was possible."

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

"Yes," replied Barbicane, "after having doubtless remained
persistently for millions of centuries; by degrees the
atmosphere becoming rarefied, the disc became uninhabitable, as
the terrestrial globe will one day become by cooling."

"By cooling?"

"Certainly," replied Barbicane; "as the internal fires became
extinguished, and the incandescent matter concentrated itself,
the lunar crust cooled. By degrees the consequences of these
phenomena showed themselves in the disappearance of organized
beings, and by the disappearance of vegetation. Soon the
atmosphere was rarefied, probably withdrawn by terrestrial
attraction; then aerial departure of respirable air, and
disappearance of water by means of evaporation. At this period
the moon becoming uninhabitable, was no longer inhabited.
It was a dead world, such as we see it to-day."

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

"Most probably."

"But when?"

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

"And have they calculated the time which our unfortunate sphere
will take to cool?"

"Certainly."

"And you know these calculations?"

"Perfectly."

"But speak, then, my clumsy savant," exclaimed Michel Ardan,
"for you make me boil with impatience!"

"Very well, my good Michel," replied Barbicane quietly; "we know
what diminution of temperature the earth undergoes in the lapse
of a century. And according to certain calculations, this mean
temperature will after a period of 400,000 years, be brought
down to zero!"

"Four hundred thousand years!" exclaimed Michel. "Ah! I
breathe again. Really I was frightened to hear you; I imagined
that we had not more than 50,000 years to live."

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at their
companion's uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wished to end the
discussion, put the second question, which had just been
considered again.

"Has the moon been inhabited?" he asked.

The answer was unanimously in the affirmative. But during this
discussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories, the
projectile was rapidly leaving the moon: the lineaments faded
away from the travelers' eyes, mountains were confused in the
distance; and of all the wonderful, strange, and fantastical
form of the earth's satellite, there soon remained nothing but
the imperishable remembrance.





CHAPTER XIX


A STRUGGLE AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE


For a long time Barbicane and his companions looked silently and
sadly upon that world which they had only seen from a distance,
as Moses saw the land of Canaan, and which they were leaving
without a possibility of ever returning to it. The projectile's
position with regard to the moon had altered, and the base was
now turned to the earth.

This change, which Barbicane verified, did not fail to surprise them.
If the projectile was to gravitate round the satellite in an
elliptical orbit, why was not its heaviest part turned toward it,
as the moon turns hers to the earth? That was a difficult point.

In watching the course of the projectile they could see that on
leaving the moon it followed a course analogous to that traced
in approaching her. It was describing a very long ellipse,
which would most likely extend to the point of equal attraction,
where the influences of the earth and its satellite are neutralized.

Such was the conclusion which Barbicane very justly drew from
facts already observed, a conviction which his two friends
shared with him.

"And when arrived at this dead point, what will become of us?"
asked Michel Ardan.

"We don't know," replied Barbicane.

"But one can draw some hypotheses, I suppose?"

"Two," answered Barbicane; "either the projectile's speed will
be insufficient, and it will remain forever immovable on this
line of double attraction----"

"I prefer the other hypothesis, whatever it may be," interrupted Michel.

"Or," continued Barbicane, "its speed will be sufficient, and it
will continue its elliptical course, to gravitate forever around
the orb of night."

"A revolution not at all consoling," said Michel, "to pass to
the state of humble servants to a moon whom we are accustomed to
look upon as our own handmaid. So that is the fate in store for us?"

Neither Barbicane nor Nicholl answered.

"You do not answer," continued Michel impatiently.

"There is nothing to answer," said Nicholl.

"Is there nothing to try?"

"No," answered Barbicane. "Do you pretend to fight against
the impossible?"

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

"But what would you do?"

"Subdue this motion which is bearing us away."

"Subdue it?"

"Yes," continued Michel, getting animated, "or else alter it,
and employ it to the accomplishment of our own ends."

"And how?"

"That is your affair. If artillerymen are not masters of their
projectile they are not artillerymen. If the projectile is to
command the gunner, we had better ram the gunner into the gun.
My faith! fine savants! who do not know what is to become of us
after inducing me----"

"Inducing you!" cried Barbicane and Nicholl. "Inducing you!
What do you mean by that?"

"No recrimination," said Michel. "I do not complain, the trip
has pleased me, and the projectile agrees with me; but let us do
all that is humanly possible to do the fall somewhere, even if
only on the moon."

"We ask no better, my worthy Michel," replied Barbicane, "but
means fail us."

"We cannot alter the motion of the projectile?"

"No."

"Nor diminish its speed?"

"No."

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

"What would you throw out?" said Nicholl. "We have no ballast
on board; and indeed it seems to me that if lightened it would
go much quicker."

"Slower."

"Quicker."

"Neither slower nor quicker," said Barbicane, wishing to make
his two friends agree; "for we float is space, and must no
longer consider specific weight."

"Very well," cried Michel Ardan in a decided voice; "then their
remains but one thing to do."

"What is it?" asked Nicholl.

"Breakfast," answered the cool, audacious Frenchman, who always
brought up this solution at the most difficult juncture.

In any case, if this operation had no influence on the
projectile's course, it could at least be tried without
inconvenience, and even with success from a stomachic point
of view. Certainly Michel had none but good ideas.

They breakfasted then at two in the morning; the hour mattered little.
Michel served his usual repast, crowned by a glorious bottle drawn
from his private cellar. If ideas did not crowd on their brains,
we must despair of the Chambertin of 1853. The repast finished,
observation began again. Around the projectile, at an invariable
distance, were the objects which had been thrown out. Evidently, in
its translatory motion round the moon, it had not passed through
any atmosphere, for the specific weight of these different objects
would have checked their relative speed.

On the side of the terrestrial sphere nothing was to be seen.
The earth was but a day old, having been new the night before at
twelve; and two days must elapse before its crescent, freed from
the solar rays, would serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in
its rotary movement each of its points after twenty-four hours
repasses the same lunar meridian.

On the moon's side the sight was different; the orb shone in all
her splendor amid innumerable constellations, whose purity could
not be troubled by her rays. On the disc, the plains were
already returning to the dark tint which is seen from the earth.
The other part of the nimbus remained brilliant, and in the midst
of this general brilliancy Tycho shone prominently like a sun.

Barbicane had no means of estimating the projectile's speed, but
reasoning showed that it must uniformly decrease, according to
the laws of mechanical reasoning. Having admitted that the
projectile was describing an orbit around the moon, this orbit
must necessarily be elliptical; science proves that it must be so.
No motive body circulating round an attracting body fails in
this law. Every orbit described in space is elliptical. And why
should the projectile of the Gun Club escape this natural arrangement?
In elliptical orbits, the attracting body always occupies one of
the foci; so that at one moment the satellite is nearer, and at
another farther from the orb around which it gravitates. When the
earth is nearest the sun she is in her perihelion; and in her
aphelion at the farthest point. Speaking of the moon, she is
nearest to the earth in her perigee, and farthest from it in
her apogee. To use analogous expressions, with which the
astronomers' language is enriched, if the projectile remains
as a satellite of the moon, we must say that it is in its
"aposelene" at its farthest point, and in its "periselene" at
its nearest. In the latter case, the projectile would attain
its maximum of speed; and in the former its minimum. It was
evidently moving toward its aposelenitical point; and Barbicane
had reason to think that its speed would decrease up to this
point, and then increase by degrees as it neared the moon.
This speed would even become nil, if this point joined that of
equal attraction. Barbicane studied the consequences of these
different situations, and thinking what inference he could draw
from them, when he was roughly disturbed by a cry from Michel Ardan.

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

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

"Because we have a very simple means of checking this speed
which is bearing us from the moon, and we do not use it!"

"And what is the means?"

"To use the recoil contained in our rockets."

"Done!" said Nicholl.

"We have not used this force yet," said Barbicane, "it is true,
but we will do so."

"When?" asked Michel.

"When the time comes. Observe, my friends, that in the position
occupied by the projectile, an oblique position with regard to
the lunar disc, our rockets, in slightly altering its direction,
might turn it from the moon instead of drawing it nearer?"

"Just so," replied Michel.

"Let us wait, then. By some inexplicable influence, the
projectile is turning its base toward the earth. It is probable
that at the point of equal attraction, its conical cap will be
directed rigidly toward the moon; at that moment we may hope
that its speed will be nil; then will be the moment to act,
and with the influence of our rockets we may perhaps
provoke a fall directly on the surface of the lunar disc."

"Bravo!" said Michel. "What we did not do, what we could not do
on our first passage at the dead point, because the projectile
was then endowed with too great a speed."

"Very well reasoned," said Nicholl.

"Let us wait patiently," continued Barbicane. "Putting every
chance on our side, and after having so much despaired, I may
say I think we shall gain our end."

This conclusion was a signal for Michel Ardan's hips and hurrahs.
And none of the audacious boobies remembered the question that
they themselves had solved in the negative. No! the moon is not
inhabited; no! the moon is probably not habitable. And yet they
were going to try everything to reach her.

One single question remained to be solved. At what precise
moment the projectile would reach the point of equal attraction,
on which the travelers must play their last card. In order to
calculate this to within a few seconds, Barbicane had only to
refer to his notes, and to reckon the different heights taken on
the lunar parallels. Thus the time necessary to travel over the
distance between the dead point and the south pole would be equal
to the distance separating the north pole from the dead point.
The hours representing the time traveled over were carefully
noted, and the calculation was easy. Barbicane found that this
point would be reached at one in the morning on the night of the
7th-8th of December. So that, if nothing interfered with its
course, it would reach the given point in twenty-two hours.

The rockets had primarily been placed to check the fall of the
projectile upon the moon, and now they were going to employ them
for a directly contrary purpose. In any case they were ready,
and they had only to wait for the moment to set fire to them.

"Since there is nothing else to be done," said Nicholl, "I make
a proposition."

"What is it?" asked Barbicane.

"I propose to go to sleep."

"What a motion!" exclaimed Michel Ardan.

"It is forty hours since we closed our eyes," said Nicholl.
"Some hours of sleep will restore our strength."

"Never," interrupted Michel.

"Well," continued Nicholl, "every one to his taste; I shall go
to sleep." And stretching himself on the divan, he soon snored
like a forty-eight pounder.

"That Nicholl has a good deal of sense," said Barbicane;
"presently I shall follow his example." Some moments after his
continued bass supported the captain's baritone.

"Certainly," said Michel Ardan, finding himself alone, "these
practical people have sometimes most opportune ideas."

And with his long legs stretched out, and his great arms folded
under his head, Michel slept in his turn.

But this sleep could be neither peaceful nor lasting, the minds
of these three men were too much occupied, and some hours after,
about seven in the morning, all three were on foot at the same instant.

The projectile was still leaving the moon, and turning its
conical part more and more toward her.

An explicable phenomenon, but one which happily served
Barbicane's ends.

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

The day seemed long. However bold the travelers might be, they
were greatly impressed by the approach of that moment which
would decide all-- either precipitate their fall on to the moon,
or forever chain them in an immutable orbit. They counted the
hours as they passed too slow for their wish; Barbicane and
Nicholl were obstinately plunged in their calculations, Michel
going and coming between the narrow walls, and watching that
impassive moon with a longing eye.

At times recollections of the earth crossed their minds. They saw
once more their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of all,
J. T. Maston. At that moment, the honorable secretary must be
filling his post on the Rocky Mountains. If he could see the
projectile through the glass of his gigantic telescope, what
would he think? After seeing it disappear behind the moon's
south pole, he would see them reappear by the north pole!
They must therefore be a satellite of a satellite! Had J. T.
Maston given this unexpected news to the world? Was this the
denouement of this great enterprise?

But the day passed without incident. The terrestrial
midnight arrived. The 8th of December was beginning.
One hour more, and the point of equal attraction would
be reached. What speed would then animate the projectile?
They could not estimate it. But no error could vitiate
Barbicane's calculations. At one in the morning this speed
ought to be and would be nil.

Besides, another phenomenon would mark the projectile's
stopping-point on the neutral line. At that spot the two
attractions, lunar and terrestrial, would be annulled.
Objects would "weigh" no more. This singular fact, which had
surprised Barbicane and his companions so much in going, would
be repeated on their return under the very same conditions.
At this precise moment they must act.

Already the projectile's conical top was sensibly turned toward
the lunar disc, presented in such a way as to utilize the whole
of the recoil produced by the pressure of the rocket apparatus.
The chances were in favor of the travelers. If its speed was
utterly annulled on this dead point, a decided movement toward
the moon would suffice, however slight, to determine its fall.

"Five minutes to one," said Nicholl.

"All is ready," replied Michel Ardan, directing a lighted match
to the flame of the gas.

"Wait!" said Barbicane, holding his chronometer in his hand.

At that moment weight had no effect. The travelers felt in
themselves the entire disappearance of it. They were very near
the neutral point, if they did not touch it.

"One o'clock," said Barbicane.

Michel Ardan applied the lighted match to a train in
communication with the rockets. No detonation was heard in
the inside, for there was no air. But, through the scuttles,
Barbicane saw a prolonged smoke, the flames of which were
immediately extinguished.

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

The three friends looked and listened without speaking, and
scarcely breathing. One might have heard the beating of their
hearts amid this perfect silence.

"Are we falling?" asked Michel Ardan, at length.

"No," said Nicholl, "since the bottom of the projectile is not
turning to the lunar disc!"

At this moment, Barbicane, quitting his scuttle, turned to his
two companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled,
and his lips contracted.

"We are falling!" said he.

"Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "on to the moon?"

"On to the earth!"

"The devil!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, adding philosophically,
"well, when we came into this projectile we were very doubtful
as to the ease with which we should get out of it!"

And now this fearful fall had begun. The speed retained had
borne the projectile beyond the dead point. The explosion of
the rockets could not divert its course. This speed in going
had carried it over the neutral line, and in returning had done
the same thing. The laws of physics condemned it to pass
through every point which it had already gone through. It was
a terrible fall, from a height of 160,000 miles, and no springs
to break it. According to the laws of gunnery, the projectile
must strike the earth with a speed equal to that with which it
left the mouth of the Columbiad, a speed of 16,000 yards in the
last second.

But to give some figures of comparison, it has been reckoned
that an object thrown from the top of the towers of Notre Dame,
the height of which is only 200 feet, will arrive on the
pavement at a speed of 240 miles per hour. Here the projectile
must strike the earth with a speed of 115,200 miles per hour.

"We are lost!" said Michel coolly.

"Very well! if we die," answered Barbicane, with a sort of
religious enthusiasm, "the results of our travels will be
magnificently spread. It is His own secret that God will
tell us! In the other life the soul will want to know nothing,
either of machines or engines! It will be identified with
eternal wisdom!"

"In fact," interrupted Michel Ardan, "the whole of the other
world may well console us for the loss of that inferior orb
called the moon!"

Barbicane crossed his arms on his breast, with a motion of
sublime resignation, saying at the same time:

"The will of heaven be done!"





CHAPTER XX


THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA


Well, lieutenant, and our soundings?"

"I think, sir, that the operation is nearing its completion,"
replied Lieutenant Bronsfield. "But who would have thought of
finding such a depth so near in shore, and only 200 miles from
the American coast?"

"Certainly, Bronsfield, there is a great depression," said
Captain Blomsberry. "In this spot there is a submarine valley
worn by Humboldt's current, which skirts the coast of America as
far as the Straits of Magellan."

"These great depths," continued the lieutenant, "are not
favorable for laying telegraphic cables. A level bottom, like
that supporting the American cable between Valentia and
Newfoundland, is much better."

"I agree with you, Bronsfield. With your permission,
lieutenant, where are we now?"

"Sir, at this moment we have 3,508 fathoms of line out, and the
ball which draws the sounding lead has not yet touched the
bottom; for if so, it would have come up of itself."

"Brook's apparatus is very ingenious," said Captain Blomsberry;
"it gives us very exact soundings."

"Touch!" cried at this moment one of the men at the forewheel,
who was superintending the operation.

The captain and the lieutenant mounted the quarterdeck.

"What depth have we?" asked the captain.

"Three thousand six hundred and twenty-seven fathoms," replied
the lieutenant, entering it in his notebook.

"Well, Bronsfield," said the captain, "I will take down
the result. Now haul in the sounding line. It will be the
work of some hours. In that time the engineer can light the
furnaces, and we shall be ready to start as soon as you
have finished. It is ten o'clock, and with your permission,
lieutenant, I will turn in."

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

The captain of the Susquehanna, as brave a man as need be, and
the humble servant of his officers, returned to his cabin, took
a brandy-grog, which earned for the steward no end of praise,
and turned in, not without having complimented his servant upon
his making beds, and slept a peaceful sleep.

It was then ten at night. The eleventh day of the month of
December was drawing to a close in a magnificent night.

The Susquehanna, a corvette of 500 horse-power, of the United
States navy, was occupied in taking soundings in the Pacific
Ocean about 200 miles off the American coast, following that
long peninsula which stretches down the coast of Mexico.

The wind had dropped by degrees. There was no disturbance in
the air. The pennant hung motionless from the maintop-gallant-
mast truck.

Captain Jonathan Blomsberry (cousin-german of Colonel
Blomsberry, one of the most ardent supporters of the Gun Club,
who had married an aunt of the captain and daughter of an
honorable Kentucky merchant)-- Captain Blomsberry could not have
wished for finer weather in which to bring to a close his
delicate operations of sounding. His corvette had not even felt
the great tempest, which by sweeping away the groups of clouds
on the Rocky Mountains, had allowed them to observe the course
of the famous projectile.

Everything went well, and with all the fervor of a Presbyterian,
he did not forget to thank heaven for it. The series of
soundings taken by the Susquehanna, had for its aim the finding
of a favorable spot for the laying of a submarine cable to
connect the Hawaiian Islands with the coast of America.

It was a great undertaking, due to the instigation of a
powerful company. Its managing director, the intelligent Cyrus
Field, purposed even covering all the islands of Oceanica with
a vast electrical network, an immense enterprise, and one worthy
of American genius.

To the corvette Susquehanna had been confided the first
operations of sounding. It was on the night of the 11th-12th of
December, she was in exactly 27@ 7' north latitude, and 41@ 37'
west longitude, on the meridian of Washington.

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

After the departure of Captain Blomsberry, the lieutenant and
some officers were standing together on the poop. On the
appearance of the moon, their thoughts turned to that orb which
the eyes of a whole hemisphere were contemplating. The best
naval glasses could not have discovered the projectile wandering
around its hemisphere, and yet all were pointed toward that
brilliant disc which millions of eyes were looking at at the
same moment.

"They have been gone ten days," said Lieutenant Bronsfield
at last. "What has become of them?"

"They have arrived, lieutenant," exclaimed a young midshipman,
"and they are doing what all travelers do when they arrive in a
new country, taking a walk!"

"Oh! I am sure of that, if you tell me so, my young friend,"
said Lieutenant Bronsfield, smiling.

"But," continued another officer, "their arrival cannot
be doubted. The projectile was to reach the moon when full
on the 5th at midnight. We are now at the 11th of December, which
makes six days. And in six times twenty-four hours, without
darkness, one would have time to settle comfortably. I fancy I
see my brave countrymen encamped at the bottom of some valley,
on the borders of a Selenite stream, near a projectile half-buried
by its fall amid volcanic rubbish, Captain Nicholl beginning his
leveling operations, President Barbicane writing out his notes,
and Michel Ardan embalming the lunar solitudes with the perfume
of his----"

"Yes! it must be so, it is so!" exclaimed the young midshipman,
worked up to a pitch of enthusiasm by this ideal description of
his superior officer.

"I should like to believe it," replied the lieutenant, who was
quite unmoved. "Unfortunately direct news from the lunar world
is still wanting."

"Beg pardon, lieutenant," said the midshipman, "but cannot
President Barbicane write?"

A burst of laughter greeted this answer.

"No letters!" continued the young man quickly. "The postal
administration has something to see to there."

"Might it not be the telegraphic service that is at fault?"
asked one of the officers ironically.

"Not necessarily," replied the midshipman, not at all confused.
"But it is very easy to set up a graphic communication with
the earth."

"And how?"

"By means of the telescope at Long's Peak. You know it brings
the moon to within four miles of the Rocky Mountains, and that
it shows objects on its surface of only nine feet in diameter.
Very well; let our industrious friends construct a giant
alphabet; let them write words three fathoms long, and sentences
three miles long, and then they can send us news of themselves."

The young midshipman, who had a certain amount of imagination,
was loudly applauded; Lieutenant Bronsfield allowing that the
idea was possible, but observing that if by these means they
could receive news from the lunar world they could not send any
from the terrestrial, unless the Selenites had instruments fit
for taking distant observations at their disposal.

"Evidently," said one of the officers; "but what has become of
the travelers? what they have done, what they have seen, that
above all must interest us. Besides, if the experiment has
succeeded (which I do not doubt), they will try it again.
The Columbiad is still sunk in the soil of Florida. It is now
only a question of powder and shot; and every time the moon is
at her zenith a cargo of visitors may be sent to her."

"It is clear," replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, "that J. T. Maston
will one day join his friends."

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

"Oh! volunteers will not be wanting," answered Bronsfield; "and
if it were allowed, half of the earth's inhabitants would
emigrate to the moon!"

This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was
kept up until nearly one in the morning. We cannot say what
blundering systems were broached, what inconsistent theories
advanced by these bold spirits. Since Barbicane's attempt,
nothing seemed impossible to the Americans. They had already
designed an expedition, not only of savants, but of a whole
colony toward the Selenite borders, and a complete army,
consisting of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, to conquer the
lunar world.

At one in the morning, the hauling in of the sounding-line was
not yet completed; 1,670 fathoms were still out, which would
entail some hours' work. According to the commander's orders,
the fires had been lighted, and steam was being got up.
The Susquehanna could have started that very instant.

At that moment (it was seventeen minutes past one in the
morning) Lieutenant Bronsfield was preparing to leave the watch
and return to his cabin, when his attention was attracted by a
distant hissing noise. His comrades and himself first thought
that this hissing was caused by the letting off of steam; but
lifting their heads, they found that the noise was produced in
the highest regions of the air. They had not time to question
each other before the hissing became frightfully intense, and
suddenly there appeared to their dazzled eyes an enormous
meteor, ignited by the rapidity of its course and its friction
through the atmospheric strata.

This fiery mass grew larger to their eyes, and fell, with
the noise of thunder, upon the bowsprit, which it smashed close
to the stem, and buried itself in the waves with a deafening roar!

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

At this instant Captain Blomsberry appeared, half-dressed, and
rushing on to the forecastle-deck, whither all the officers had
hurried, exclaimed, "With your permission, gentlemen, what
has happened?"

And the midshipman, making himself as it were the echo of the
body, cried, "Commander, it is `they' come back again!"





CHAPTER XXI


J. T. MASTON RECALLED


"It is `they' come back again!" the young midshipman had said,
and every one had understood him. No one doubted but that the
meteor was the projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travelers
which it enclosed, opinions were divided regarding their fate.

"They are dead!" said one.

"They are alive!" said another; "the crater is deep, and the
shock was deadened."

"But they must have wanted air," continued a third speaker;
"they must have died of suffocation."

"Burned!" replied a fourth; "the projectile was nothing but an
incandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere."

"What does it matter!" they exclaimed unanimously; "living or
dead, we must pull them out!"

But Captain Blomsberry had assembled his officers, and "with
their permission," was holding a council. They must decide upon
something to be done immediately. The more hasty ones were for
fishing up the projectile. A difficult operation, though not an
impossible one. But the corvette had no proper machinery, which
must be both fixed and powerful; so it was resolved that they
should put in at the nearest port, and give information to the
Gun Club of the projectile's fall.

This determination was unanimous. The choice of the port had
to be discussed. The neighboring coast had no anchorage on
27@ latitude. Higher up, above the peninsula of Monterey, stands
the important town from which it takes its name; but, seated on
the borders of a perfect desert, it was not connected with the
interior by a network of telegraphic wires, and electricity
alone could spread these important news fast enough.

Some degrees above opened the bay of San Francisco. Through the
capital of the gold country communication would be easy with the
heart of the Union. And in less than two days the Susquehanna,
by putting on high pressure, could arrive in that port. She must
therefore start at once.

The fires were made up; they could set off immediately.
Two thousand fathoms of line were still out, which Captain
Blomsberry, not wishing to lose precious time in hauling in,
resolved to cut.

"we will fasten the end to a buoy," said he, "and that buoy will
show us the exact spot where the projectile fell."

"Besides," replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, "we have our situation
exact-- 27@ 7' north latitude and 41@ 37' west longitude."

"Well, Mr. Bronsfield," replied the captain, "now, with your
permission, we will have the line cut."

A strong buoy, strengthened by a couple of spars, was thrown
into the ocean. The end of the rope was carefully lashed to it;
and, left solely to the rise and fall of the billows, the buoy
would not sensibly deviate from the spot.

At this moment the engineer sent to inform the captain that
steam was up and they could start, for which agreeable
communication the captain thanked him. The course was then
given north-northeast, and the corvette, wearing, steered at
full steam direct for San Francisco. It was three in the morning.

Four hundred and fifty miles to cross; it was nothing for a good
vessel like the Susquehanna. In thirty-six hours she had covered
that distance; and on the 14th of December, at twenty-seven
minutes past one at night, she entered the bay of San Francisco.

At the sight of a ship of the national navy arriving at full speed,
with her bowsprit broken, public curiosity was greatly roused.
A dense crowd soon assembled on the quay, waiting for them
to disembark.

After casting anchor, Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant
Bronsfield entered an eight-pared cutter, which soon brought
them to land.

They jumped on to the quay.

"The telegraph?" they asked, without answering one of the
thousand questions addressed to them.

The officer of the port conducted them to the telegraph office
through a concourse of spectators. Blomsberry and Bronsfield
entered, while the crowd crushed each other at the door.

Some minutes later a fourfold telegram was sent out--the first
to the Naval Secretary at Washington; the second to the
vice-president of the Gun Club, Baltimore; the third to the Hon.
J. T. Maston, Long's Peak, Rocky Mountains; and the fourth to
the sub-director of the Cambridge Observatory, Massachusetts.

It was worded as follows:


In 20@ 7' north latitude, and 41@ 37' west longitude, on the
12th of December, at seventeen minutes past one in the morning,
the projectile of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific.
Send instructions.-- BLOMSBERRY, Commander Susquehanna.


Five minutes afterward the whole town of San Francisco learned
the news. Before six in the evening the different States of the
Union had heard the great catastrophe; and after midnight, by
the cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the great
American experiment. We will not attempt to picture the effect
produced on the entire world by that unexpected denouement.

On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed to
the Susquehanna to wait in the bay of San Francisco without
extinguishing her fires. Day and night she must be ready
to put to sea.

The Cambridge observatory called a special meeting; and, with
that composure which distinguishes learned bodies in general,
peacefully discussed the scientific bearings of the question.
At the Gun Club there was an explosion. All the gunners
were assembled. Vice-President the Hon. Wilcome was in the
act of reading the premature dispatch, in which J. T. Maston
and Belfast announced that the projectile had just been seen in
the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak, and also that it was held
by lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under satellite
to the lunar world.

We know the truth on that point.

But on the arrival of Blomsberry's dispatch, so decidely
contradicting J. T. Maston's telegram, two parties were formed
in the bosom of the Gun Club. On one side were those who
admitted the fall of the projectile, and consequently the return
of the travelers; on the other, those who believed in the
observations of Long's Peak, concluded that the commander of the
Susquehanna had made a mistake. To the latter the pretended
projectile was nothing but a meteor! nothing but a meteor, a
shooting globe, which in its fall had smashed the bows of
the corvette. It was difficult to answer this argument, for
the speed with which it was animated must have made observation
very difficult. The commander of the Susquehanna and her
officers might have made a mistake in all good faith; one argument
however, was in their favor, namely, that if the projectile had
fallen on the earth, its place of meeting with the terrestrial
globe could only take place on this 27@ north latitude, and
(taking into consideration the time that had elapsed, and the
rotary motion of the earth) between the 41@ and the 42@ of
west longitude. In any case, it was decided in the Gun Club
that Blomsberry brothers, Bilsby, and Major Elphinstone should
go straight to San Francisco, and consult as to the means of
raising the projectile from the depths of the ocean.

These devoted men set off at once; and the railroad, which will
soon cross the whole of Central America, took them as far as St.
Louis, where the swift mail-coaches awaited them. Almost at the
same moment in which the Secretary of Marine, the vice-president
of the Gun Club, and the sub-director of the Observatory received
the dispatch from San Francisco, the Honorable J. T. Maston was
undergoing the greatest excitement he had ever experienced in his
life, an excitement which even the bursting of his pet gun, which
had more than once nearly cost him his life, had not caused him.
We may remember that the secretary of the Gun Club had started
soon after the projectile (and almost as quickly) for the station
on Long's Peak, in the Rocky Mountains, J. Belfast, director of the
Cambridge Observatory, accompanying him. Arrived there, the two
friends had installed themselves at once, never quitting the
summit of their enormous telescope. We know that this gigantic
instrument had been set up according to the reflecting system,
called by the English "front view." This arrangement subjected
all objects to but one reflection, making the view consequently
much clearer; the result was that, when they were taking
observation, J. T. Maston and Belfast were placed in the upper
part of the instrument and not in the lower, which they reached
by a circular staircase, a masterpiece of lightness, while below
them opened a metal well terminated by the metallic mirror,
which measured two hundred and eighty feet in depth.

It was on a narrow platform placed above the telescope that the
two savants passed their existence, execrating the day which hid
the moon from their eyes, and the clouds which obstinately
veiled her during the night.

What, then, was their delight when, after some days of waiting,
on the night of the 5th of December, they saw the vehicle which
was bearing their friends into space! To this delight succeeded
a great deception, when, trusting to a cursory observation, they
launched their first telegram to the world, erroneously
affirming that the projectile had become a satellite of the
moon, gravitating in an immutable orbit.

From that moment it had never shown itself to their eyes-- a
disappearance all the more easily explained, as it was then
passing behind the moon's invisible disc; but when it was time
for it to reappear on the visible disc, one may imagine the
impatience of the fuming J. T. Maston and his not less
impatient companion. Each minute of the night they thought
they saw the projectile once more, and they did not see it.
Hence constant discussions and violent disputes between them,
Belfast affirming that the projectile could not be seen, J. T.
Maston maintaining that "it had put his eyes out."

"It is the projectile!" repeated J. T. Maston.

"No," answered Belfast; "it is an avalanche detached from a
lunar mountain."

"Well, we shall see it to-morrow."

"No, we shall not see it any more. It is carried into space."

"Yes!"

"No!"

And at these moments, when contradictions rained like hail, the
well-known irritability of the secretary of the Gun Club
constituted a permanent danger for the Honorable Belfast.
The existence of these two together would soon have become
impossible; but an unforseen event cut short their
everlasting discussions.

During the night, from the 14th to the 15th of December, the two
irreconcilable friends were busy observing the lunar disc, J. T.
Maston abusing the learned Belfast as usual, who was by his
side; the secretary of the Gun Club maintaining for the
thousandth time that he had just seen the projectile, and adding
that he could see Michel Ardan's face looking through one of the
scuttles, at the same time enforcing his argument by a series of
gestures which his formidable hook rendered very unpleasant.

At this moment Belfast's servant appeared on the platform (it
was ten at night) and gave him a dispatch. It was the commander
of the Susquehanna's telegram.

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

"What!" said J. T. Maston.

"The projectile!"

"Well!"

"Has fallen to the earth!"

Another cry, this time a perfect howl, answered him. He turned
toward J. T. Maston. The unfortunate man, imprudently leaning
over the metal tube, had disappeared in the immense telescope.
A fall of two hundred and eighty feet! Belfast, dismayed,
rushed to the orifice of the reflector.

He breathed. J. T. Maston, caught by his metal hook, was
holding on by one of the rings which bound the telescope
together, uttering fearful cries.

Belfast called. Help was brought, tackle was let down, and they
hoisted up, not without some trouble, the imprudent secretary of
the Gun Club.

He reappeared at the upper orifice without hurt.

"Ah!" said he, "if I had broken the mirror?"

"You would have paid for it," replied Belfast severely.

"And that cursed projectile has fallen?" asked J. T. Maston.

"Into the Pacific!"

"Let us go!"

A quarter of an hour after the two savants were descending the
declivity of the Rocky Mountains; and two days after, at the
same time as their friends of the Gun Club, they arrived at San
Francisco, having killed five horses on the road.

Elphinstone, the brothers Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed toward
them on their arrival.

"What shall we do?" they exclaimed.

"Fish up the projectile," replied J. T. Maston, "and the sooner
the better."




CHAPTER XXII


RECOVERED FROM THE SEA


The spot where the projectile sank under the waves was exactly
known; but the machinery to grasp it and bring it to the surface
of the ocean was still wanting. It must first be invented,
then made. American engineers could not be troubled with
such trifles. The grappling-irons once fixed, by their help
they were sure to raise it in spite of its weight, which was
lessened by the density of the liquid in which it was plunged.

But fishing-up the projectile was not the only thing to be thought of.
They must act promptly in the interest of the travelers. No one
doubted that they were still living.

"Yes," repeated J. T. Maston incessantly, whose confidence
gained over everybody, "our friends are clever people, and they
cannot have fallen like simpletons. They are alive, quite alive;
but we must make haste if we wish to find them so. Food and
water do not trouble me; they have enough for a long while.
But air, air, that is what they will soon want; so quick, quick!"

And they did go quick. They fitted up the Susquehanna for her
new destination. Her powerful machinery was brought to bear
upon the hauling-chains. The aluminum projectile only weighed
19,250 pounds, a weight very inferior to that of the transatlantic
cable which had been drawn up under similar conditions. The only
difficulty was in fishing up a cylindro-conical projectile, the
walls of which were so smooth as to offer no hold for the hooks.
On that account Engineer Murchison hastened to San Francisco,
and had some enormous grappling-irons fixed on an automatic
system, which would never let the projectile go if it once
succeeded in seizing it in its powerful claws. Diving-dresses
were also prepared, which through this impervious covering allowed
the divers to observe the bottom of the sea. He also had put on
board an apparatus of compressed air very cleverly designed.
There were perfect chambers pierced with scuttles, which, with
water let into certain compartments, could draw it down into
great depths. These apparatuses were at San Francisco, where
they had been used in the construction of a submarine breakwater;
and very fortunately it was so, for there was no time to
construct any. But in spite of the perfection of the machinery,
in spite of the ingenuity of the savants entrusted with the use
of them, the success of the operation was far from being certain.
How great were the chances against them, the projectile being
20,000 feet under the water! And if even it was brought to the
surface, how would the travelers have borne the terrible shock
which 20,000 feet of water had perhaps not sufficiently broken?
At any rate they must act quickly. J. T. Maston hurried the
workmen day and night. He was ready to don the diving-dress
himself, or try the air apparatus, in order to reconnoiter the
situation of his courageous friends.

But in spite of all the diligence displayed in preparing the
different engines, in spite of the considerable sum placed at
the disposal of the Gun Club by the Government of the Union,
five long days (five centuries!) elapsed before the preparations
were complete. During this time public opinion was excited to
the highest pitch. Telegrams were exchanged incessantly
throughout the entire world by means of wires and electric cables.
The saving of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan was an
international affair. Every one who had subscribed to the Gun
Club was directly interested in the welfare of the travelers.

At length the hauling-chains, the air-chambers, and the
automatic grappling-irons were put on board. J. T. Maston,
Engineer Murchison, and the delegates of the Gun Club, were
already in their cabins. They had but to start, which they did
on the 21st of December, at eight o'clock at night, the corvette
meeting with a beautiful sea, a northeasterly wind, and rather
sharp cold. The whole population of San Francisco was gathered
on the quay, greatly excited but silent, reserving their hurrahs
for the return. Steam was fully up, and the screw of the
Susquehanna carried them briskly out of the bay.

It is needless to relate the conversations on board between
the officers, sailors, and passengers. All these men had but
one thought. All these hearts beat under the same emotion.
While they were hastening to help them, what were Barbicane and
his companions doing? What had become of them? Were they able to
attempt any bold maneuver to regain their liberty? None could say.
The truth is that every attempt must have failed! Immersed nearly
four miles under the ocean, this metal prison defied every effort
of its prisoners.

On the 23rd inst., at eight in the morning, after a rapid
passage, the Susquehanna was due at the fatal spot. They must
wait till twelve to take the reckoning exactly. The buoy
to which the sounding line had been lashed had not yet
been recognized.

At twelve, Captain Blomsberry, assisted by his officers who
superintended the observations, took the reckoning in the
presence of the delegates of the Gun Club. Then there was a
moment of anxiety. Her position decided, the Susquehanna was
found to be some minutes westward of the spot where the
projectile had disappeared beneath the waves.

The ship's course was then changed so as to reach this exact point.

At forty-seven minutes past twelve they reached the buoy; it was
in perfect condition, and must have shifted but little.

"At last!" exclaimed J. T. Maston.

"Shall we begin?" asked Captain Blomsberry.

"Without losing a second."

Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette almost
completely motionless. Before trying to seize the projectile,
Engineer Murchison wanted to find its exact position at the
bottom of the ocean. The submarine apparatus destined for this
expedition was supplied with air. The working of these engines
was not without danger, for at 20,000 feet below the surface of
the water, and under such great pressure, they were exposed to
fracture, the consequences of which would be dreadful.

J. T. Maston, the brothers Blomsberry, and Engineer Murchison,
without heeding these dangers, took their places in the
air-chamber. The commander, posted on his bridge, superintended
the operation, ready to stop or haul in the chains on the
slightest signal. The screw had been shipped, and the whole
power of the machinery collected on the capstan would have
quickly drawn the apparatus on board. The descent began at
twenty-five minutes past one at night, and the chamber,
drawn under by the reservoirs full of water, disappeared
from the surface of the ocean.

The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was now
divided between the prisoners in the projectile and the
prisoners in the submarine apparatus. As to the latter, they
forgot themselves, and, glued to the windows of the scuttles,
attentively watched the liquid mass through which they were passing.

The descent was rapid. At seventeen minutes past two, J. T.
Maston and his companions had reached the bottom of the Pacific;
but they saw nothing but an arid desert, no longer animated by
either fauna or flora. By the light of their lamps, furnished
with powerful reflectors, they could see the dark beds of the
ocean for a considerable extent of view, but the projectile was
nowhere to be seen.

The impatience of these bold divers cannot be described, and
having an electrical communication with the corvette, they made
a signal already agreed upon, and for the space of a mile the
Susquehanna moved their chamber along some yards above the bottom.

Thus they explored the whole submarine plain, deceived at every
turn by optical illusions which almost broke their hearts.
Here a rock, there a projection from the ground, seemed to be
the much-sought-for projectile; but their mistake was soon
discovered, and then they were in despair.

"But where are they? where are they?" cried J. T. Maston. And the
poor man called loudly upon Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan,
as if his unfortunate friends could either hear or answer him
through such an impenetrable medium! The search continued under
these conditions until the vitiated air compelled the divers to ascend.

The hauling in began about six in the evening, and was not ended
before midnight.

"To-morrow," said J. T. Maston, as he set foot on the bridge of
the corvette.

"Yes," answered Captain Blomsberry.

"And on another spot?"

"Yes."

J. T. Maston did not doubt of their final success, but his
companions, no longer upheld by the excitement of the first
hours, understood all the difficulty of the enterprise.
What seemed easy at San Francisco, seemed here in the wide
ocean almost impossible. The chances of success diminished in
rapid proportion; and it was from chance alone that the meeting
with the projectile might be expected.

The next day, the 24th, in spite of the fatigue of the previous
day, the operation was renewed. The corvette advanced some
minutes to westward, and the apparatus, provided with air, bore
the same explorers to the depths of the ocean.

The whole day passed in fruitless research; the bed of the sea
was a desert. The 25th brought no other result, nor the 26th.



 


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