"Seriously?"

"Quite."

"Could you use that tool before me?"

"If it would interest you."

"And could you show me how they calculated the initial speed of our vehicle?"

"Yes, my worthy friend. By taking into account all the elements of the problem, the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon, of the radius of the earth, the volume of the earth and the volume of the moon, I can determine exactly what the initial speed of the projectile ought to be, and that by a very simple formula."

"Show me the formula."

"You shall see it. Only I will not give you the curve really traced by the bullet between the earth and the moon, by taking into account their movement of translation round the sun. No. I will consider both bodies to be motionless, and that will be sufficient for us."

"Why?"

"Because that would be seeking to solve the problem called 'the problem of the three bodies,' for which the integral calculus is not yet far enough advanced."

"Indeed," said Michel Ardan in a bantering tone; "then mathematics have not said their last word."

"Certainly not," answered Barbicane.

"Good! Perhaps the Selenites have pushed the integral calculus further than you! By-the-bye, what is the integral calculus?"

"It is the inverse of the differential calculus," answered Barbicane seriously.

"Much obliged."

"To speak otherwise, it is a calculus by which you seek finished quantities of what you know the differential quantities."

"That is clear at least," answered Barbicane with a quite satisfied air.

"And now," continued Barbicane, "for a piece of paper and a pencil, and in half-an-hour I will have found the required formula."

That said, Barbicane became absorbed in his work, whilst Nicholl looked into space, leaving the care of preparing breakfast to his companion.

Half-an-hour had not elapsed before Barbicane, raising his head, showed Michel Ardan a page covered with algebraical signs, amidst which the following general formula was discernible:—

1 2 2 r m' r r - (v - v ) = gr { —- - 1 + —- ( —- - —-) } 2 0 x m d-x d-r

"And what does that mean?" asked Michel.

"That means," answered Nicholl, "that the half of v minus v zero square equals gr multiplied by r upon x minus 1 plus m prime upon m multiplied by r upon d minus x, minus r upon d minus x minus r—"

"X upon y galloping upon z and rearing upon p" cried Michel Ardan, bursting out laughing. "Do you mean to say you understand that, captain?"

"Nothing is clearer."

"Then," said Michel Ardan, "it is as plain as a pikestaff, and I want nothing more."

"Everlasting laugher," said Barbicane, "you wanted algebra, and now you shall have it over head and ears."

"I would rather be hung!"

"That appears a good solution, Barbicane," said Nicholl, who was examining the formula like a connaisseur. "It is the integral of the equation of 'vis viva,' and I do not doubt that it will give us the desired result."

"But I should like to understand!" exclaimed Michel. "I would give ten years of Nicholl's life to understand!"

"Then listen," resumed Barbicane. "The half of v minus v zero square is the formula that gives us the demi-variation of the 'vis viva.'"

"Good; and does Nicholl understand what that means?"

"Certainly, Michel," answered the captain. "All those signs that look so cabalistic to you form the clearest and most logical language for those who know how to read it."

"And do you pretend, Nicholl," asked Michel, "that by means of these hieroglyphics, more incomprehensible than the Egyptian ibis, you can find the initial speed necessary to give to the projectile?"

"Incontestably," answered Nicholl; "and even by that formula I could always tell you what speed it is going at on any point of the journey."

"Upon your word of honour?"

"Yes."

"Then you are as clever as our president."

"No, Michel, all the difficulty consists in what Barbicane has done. It is to establish an equation which takes into account all the conditions of the problem. The rest is only a question of arithmetic, and requires nothing but a knowledge of the four rules."

"That's something," answered Michel Ardan, who had never been able to make a correct addition in his life, and who thus defined the rule: "A Chinese puzzle, by which you can obtain infinitely various results."

Still Barbicane answered that Nicholl would certainly have found the formula had he thought about it.

"I do not know if I should," said Nicholl, "for the more I study it the more marvellously correct I find it."

"Now listen," said Barbicane to his ignorant comrade, "and you will see that all these letters have a signification."

"I am listening," said Michel, looking resigned.

"d," said Barbicane, "is the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon, for we must take the centres to calculate the attraction."

"That I understand."

"r is the radius of the earth."

"r, radius; admitted."

"m is the volume of the earth; m prime that of the moon. We are obliged to take into account the volume of the two attracting bodies, as the attraction is in proportion to the volume."

"I understand that."

"g represents gravity, the speed acquired at the end of a second by a body falling on the surface of the earth. Is that clear?"

"A mountain stream!" answered Michel.

"Now I represent by x the variable distance that separates the projectile from the centre of the earth, and by v the velocity the projectile has at that distance."

"Good."

"Lastly, the expression v zero which figures in the equation is the speed the bullet possesses when it emerges from the atmosphere."

"Yes," said Nicholl, "you were obliged to calculate the velocity from that point, because we knew before that the velocity at departure is exactly equal to 3/2 of the velocity upon emerging from the atmosphere."

"Don't understand any more!" said Michel.

"Yet it is very simple," said Barbicane.

"I do not find it very simple," replied Michel.

"It means that when our projectile reached the limit of the terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost one-third of its initial velocity."

"As much as that?"

"Yes, my friend, simply by friction against the atmosphere. You will easily understand that the greater its speed the more resistance it would meet with from the air."

"That I admit," answered Michel, "and I understand it, although your v zero two and your v zero square shake about in my head like nails in a sack."

"First effect of algebra," continued Barbicane. "And now to finish we are going to find the numerical known quantity of these different expressions—that is to say, find out their value."

"You will finish me first!" answered Michel.

"Some of these expressions," said Barbicane, "are known; the others have to be calculated."

"I will calculate those," said Nicholl.

"And r," resumed Barbicane, "r is the radius of the earth under the latitude of Florida, our point of departure, d—that is to say, the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon equals fifty-six terrestrial radii—"

Nicholl rapidly calculated.

"That makes 356,720,000 metres when the moon is at her perigee—that is to say, when she is nearest to the earth."

"Very well," said Barbicane, "now m prime upon m—that is to say, the proportion of the moon's volume to that of the earth equals 1/81."

"Perfect," said Michel.

"And g, the gravity, is to Florida 9-1/81 metres. From whence it results that gr equals—"

"Sixty-two million four hundred and twenty-six thousand square metres," answered Nicholl.

"What next?" asked Michel Ardan.

"Now that the expressions are reduced to figures, I am going to find the velocity v zero—that is to say, the velocity that the projectile ought to have on leaving the atmosphere to reach the point of equal attraction with no velocity. The velocity at that point I make equal zero, and x, the distance where the neutral point is, will be represented by the nine-tenths of d—that is to say, the distance that separates the two centres."

"I have some vague idea that it ought to be so," said Michel.

"I shall then have, x equals nine-tenths of d, and v equals zero, and my formula will become—"

Barbicane wrote rapidly on the paper—

2 10r 1 10r r v = 2 gr { 1 - —- —- ( —- - —-) } 0 9d 81 d d-r

Nicholl read it quickly.

"That's it! that is it!" he cried.

"Is it clear?" asked Barbicane.

"It is written in letters of fire!" answered Nicholl.

"Clever fellows!" murmured Michel.

"Do you understand now?" asked Barbicane.

"If I understand!" cried Michel Ardan. "My head is bursting with it."

"Thus," resumed Barbicane, "v zero square equals 2 gr multiplied by 1 minus 10 r upon 9 d minus 1/81 multiplied by 10 r upon d minus r upon d minus r."

"And now," said Nicholl, "in order to obtain the velocity of the bullet as it emerges from the atmosphere I have only to calculate."

The captain, like a man used to overcome all difficulties, began to calculate with frightful rapidity. Divisions and multiplications grew under his fingers. Figures dotted the page. Barbicane followed him with his eyes, whilst Michel Ardan compressed a coming headache with his two hands.

"Well, what do you make it?" asked Barbicane after several minutes' silence.

"I make it 11,051 metres in the first second."

"What do you say?" said Barbicane, starting.

"Eleven thousand and fifty-one metres."

"Malediction!" cried the president with a gesture of despair.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Michel Ardan, much surprised.

"The matter! why if at this moment the velocity was already diminished one-third by friction, the initial speed ought to have been—"

"Sixteen thousand five hundred and seventy-six metres!" answered Nicholl.

"But the Cambridge Observatory declared that 11,000 metres were enough at departure, and our bullet started with that velocity only!"

"Well?" asked Nicholl.

"Why it was not enough!"

"No."

"We shall not reach the neutral point."

"The devil!"

"We shall not even go half way!"

"Nom d'un boulet!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, jumping up as if the projectile were on the point of striking against the terrestrial globe.

"And we shall fall back upon the earth!"



CHAPTER V.

THE TEMPERATURE OF SPACE.

This revelation acted like a thunderbolt. Who could have expected such an error in calculation? Barbicane would not believe it. Nicholl went over the figures again. They were correct. The formula which had established them could not be mistrusted, and, when verified, the initial velocity of 16,576 metres, necessary for attaining the neutral point, was found quite right.

The three friends looked at one another in silence. No one thought about breakfast after that. Barbicane, with set teeth, contracted brow, and fists convulsively closed, looked through the port-light. Nicholl folded his arms and examined his calculations. Michel Ardan murmured—

"That's just like savants! That's the way they always do! I would give twenty pistoles to fall upon the Cambridge Observatory and crush it, with all its stupid staff inside!"

All at once the captain made a reflection which struck Barbicane at once.

"Why," said he, "it is seven o'clock in the morning, so we have been thirty-two hours on the road. We have come more than half way, and we are not falling yet that I know of!"

Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at the captain he took a compass, which he used to measure the angular distance of the terrestrial globe. Then through the lower port-light he made a very exact observation from the apparent immobility of the projectile. Then rising and wiping the perspiration from his brow, he put down some figures upon paper. Nicholl saw that the president wished to find out from the length of the terrestrial diameter the distance of the bullet from the earth. He looked at him anxiously.

"No!" cried Barbicane in a few minutes' time, "we are not falling! We are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth! We have passed the point the projectile ought to have stopped at if its speed had been only 11,000 metres at our departure! We are still ascending!"

"That is evident," answered Nicholl; "so we must conclude that our initial velocity, under the propulsion of the 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton, was greater than the 11,000 metres. I can now explain to myself why we met with the second satellite, that gravitates at more than 2,000 leagues from the earth, in less than thirteen minutes."

"That explanation is so much the more probable," added Barbicane, "because by throwing out the water in our movable partitions the projectile was made considerably lighter all at once."

"That is true," said Nicholl.

"Ah, my brave Nicholl," cried Barbicane, "we are saved!"

"Very well then," answered Michel Ardan tranquilly, "as we are saved, let us have breakfast."

Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had happily been greater than that indicated by the Cambridge Observatory, but the Cambridge Observatory had no less been mistaken.

The travellers, recovered from their false alarm, sat down to table and breakfasted merrily. Though they ate much they talked more. Their confidence was greater after the "algebra incident."

"Why should we not succeed?" repeated Michel Ardan. "Why should we not arrive? We are on the road; there are no obstacles before us, and no stones on our route. It is free—freer than that of a ship that has to struggle with the sea, or a balloon with the wind against it! Now if a ship can go where it pleases, or a balloon ascend where it pleases, why should not our projectile reach the goal it was aimed at?"

"It will reach it," said Barbicane.

"If only to honour the American nation," added Michel Ardan, "the only nation capable of making such an enterprise succeed—the only one that could have produced a President Barbicane! Ah! now I think of it, now that all our anxieties are over, what will become of us? We shall be as dull as stagnant water."

Barbicane and Nicholl made gestures of repudiation.

"But I foresaw this, my friends," resumed Michel Ardan. "You have only to say the word. I have chess, backgammon, cards, and dominoes at your disposition. We only want a billiard-table!"

"What?" asked Barbicane, "did you bring such trifles as those?"

"Certainly," answered Michel; "not only for our amusement, but also in the praiseworthy intention of bestowing them upon Selenite inns."

"My friend," said Barbicane, "if the moon is inhabited its inhabitants appeared some thousands of years before those of the earth, for it cannot be doubted that the moon is older than the earth. If, therefore, the Selenites have existed for thousands of centuries—if their brains are organised like that of human beings—they have invented all that we have invented, already, and even what we shall only invent in the lapse of centuries. They will have nothing to learn from us, and we shall have everything to learn from them."

"What!" answered Michel, "do you think they have had artists like Phidias, Michael Angelo, or Raphael?"

"Yes."

"Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?"

"I am sure of it."

"Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant?"

"I have no doubt of it."

"Savants like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, and Newton?"

"I could swear it."

"Clowns like Arnal, and photographers like—Nadar?"

"I am certain of it."

"Then, friend Barbicane, if these Selenites are as learned as we, and even more so, why have they not hurled a lunar projectile as far as the terrestrial regions?"

"Who says they have not done it?" answered Barbicane seriously.

"In fact," added Nicholl, "it would have been easier to them than to us, and that for two reasons—the first because the attraction is six times less on the surface of the moon than on the surface of the earth, which would allow a projectile to go up more easily; secondly the projectile would only have 8,000 leagues to travel instead of 80,000, which would require a force of propulsion ten times less."

"Then," resumed Michel, "I repeat—why have they not done it?"

"And I," replied Barbicane, "I repeat—who says they have not done it?"

"When?"

"Hundreds of centuries ago, before man's appearance upon earth."

"And the bullet? Where is the bullet? I ask to see the bullet!"

"My friend," answered Barbicane, "the sea covers five-sixths of our globe, hence there are five good reasons for supposing that the lunar projectile, if it has been fired, is now submerged at the bottom of the Atlantic or Pacific, unless it was buried down some abyss at the epoch when the earth's crust was not sufficiently formed."

"Old fellow," answered Michel, "you have an answer to everything, and I bow before your wisdom. There is one hypothesis I would rather believe than the others, and that is that the Selenites being older than we are wiser, and have not invented gunpowder at all."

At that moment Diana claimed her share in the conversation by a sonorous bark. She asked for her breakfast.

"Ah!" said Michel Ardan, "our arguments make us forget Diana and Satellite!"

A good dish of food was immediately offered to the dog, who devoured it with great appetite.

"Do you know, Barbicane," said Michel, "we ought to have made this projectile a sort of Noah's Ark, and have taken a couple of all the domestic animals with us to the moon."

"No doubt," answered Barbicane, "but we should not have had room enough."

"Oh, we might have been packed a little tighter!"

"The fact is," answered Nicholl, "that oxen, cows, bulls, and horses, all those ruminants would be useful on the lunar continent. Unfortunately we cannot make our projectile either a stable or a cowshed."

"But at least," said Michel Ardan, "we might have brought an ass, nothing but a little ass, the courageous and patient animal old Silenus loved to exhibit. I am fond of those poor asses! They are the least favoured animals in creation. They are not only beaten during their lifetime, but are still beaten after their death!"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Barbicane.

"Why, don't they use his skin to make drums of?"

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this absurd reflection. But a cry from their merry companion stopped them; he was bending over Satellite's niche, and rose up saying—

"Good! Satellite is no longer ill."

"Ah!" said Nicholl.

"No!" resumed Michel, "he is dead. Now," he added in a pitiful tone, "this will be embarrassing! I very much fear, poor Diana, that you will not leave any of your race in the lunar regions!"

The unfortunate Satellite had not been able to survive his wounds. He was dead, stone dead. Michel Ardan, much put out of countenance, looked at his friends.

"This makes another difficulty," said Barbicane. "We can't keep the dead body of this dog with us for another eight-and-forty hours."

"No, certainly not," answered Nicholl, "but our port-lights are hung upon hinges. They can be let down. We will open one of them, and throw the body into space."

The president reflected for a few minutes, and then said—

"Yes, that is what we must do, but we must take the most minute precautions."

"Why?" asked Michel.

"For two reasons that I will explain to you," answered Barbicane. "The first has reference to the air in the projectile, of which we must lose as little as possible."

"But we can renew the air!"

"Not entirely. We can only renew the oxygen, Michel; and, by-the-bye, we must be careful that the apparatus do not furnish us with this oxygen in an immoderate quantity, for an excess of it would cause grave physiological consequences. But although we can renew the oxygen we cannot renew the azote, that medium which the lungs do not absorb, and which ought to remain intact. Now the azote would rapidly escape if the port-lights were opened."

"Not just the time necessary to throw poor Satellite out."

"Agreed; but we must do it quickly."

"And what is the second reason?" asked Michel.

"The second reason is that we must not allow the exterior cold, which is excessive, to penetrate into our projectile lest we should be frozen alive."

"Still the sun—"

"The sun warms our projectile because it absorbs its rays, but it does not warm the void we are in now. When there is no air there is no more heat than there is diffused light, and where the sun's rays do not reach directly it is both dark and cold. The temperature outside is only that produced by the radiation of the stars—that is to say, the same as the temperature of the terrestrial globe would be if one day the sun were to be extinguished."

"No fear of that," answered Nicholl.

"Who knows?" said Michel Ardan. "And even supposing that the sun be not extinguished, it might happen that the earth will move farther away from it."

"Good!" said Nicholl; "that's one of Michel's ideas!"

"Well," resumed Michel, "it is well known that in 1861 the earth went through the tail of a comet. Now suppose there was a comet with a power of attraction greater than that of the sun, the terrestrial globe might make a curve towards the wandering star, and the earth would become its satellite, and would be dragged away to such a distance that the rays of the sun would have no action on its surface."

"That might happen certainly," answered Barbicane, "but the consequences would not be so redoubtable as you would suppose."

"How so?"

"Because heat and cold would still be pretty well balanced upon our globe. It has been calculated that if the earth had been carried away by the comet of 1861, it would only have felt, when at its greatest distance from the sun, a heat sixteen times greater than that sent to us by the moon—a heat which, when focussed by the strongest lens, produces no appreciable effect."

"Well?" said Michel.

"Wait a little," answered Barbicane. "It has been calculated that at its perihelion, when nearest to the sun, the earth would have borne a heat equal to 28,000 times that of summer. But this heat, capable of vitrifying terrestrial matters, and of evaporating water, would have formed a thick circle of clouds which would have lessened the excessive heat, hence there would be compensation between the cold of the aphelion and the heat of the perihelion, and an average probably supportable."

"At what number of degrees do they estimate the temperature of the planetary space?"

"Formerly," answered Barbicane, "it was believed that this temperature was exceedingly low. By calculating its thermometric diminution it was fixed at millions of degrees below zero. It was Fourier, one of Michel's countrymen, an illustrious savant of the Academie des Sciences, who reduced these numbers to a juster estimation. According to him, the temperature of space does not get lower than 60 deg. Centigrade."

Michel whistled.

"It is about the temperature of the polar regions," answered Barbicane, "at Melville Island or Fort Reliance—about 56 deg. Centigrade below zero."

"It remains to be proved," said Nicholl, "that Fourier was not mistaken in his calculations. If I am not mistaken, another Frenchman, M. Pouillet, estimates the temperature of space at 160 deg. below zero. We shall be able to verify that."

"Not now," answered Barbicane, "for the solar rays striking directly upon our thermometer would give us, on the contrary, a very elevated temperature. But when we get upon the moon, during the nights, a fortnight long, which each of its faces endures alternately, we shall have leisure to make the experiment, for our satellite moves in the void."

"What do you mean by the void?" asked Michel; "is it absolute void?"

"It is absolutely void of air."

"Is there nothing in its place?"

"Yes, ether," answered Barbicane.

"Ah! and what is ether?"

"Ether, my friend, is an agglomeration of imponderable particles, which, relatively to their dimensions, are as far removed from each other as the celestial bodies are in space, so say works on molecular physics. It is these atoms that by their vibrating movement produce light and heat by making four hundred and thirty billions of oscillations a second."

"Millions of millions!" exclaimed Michel Ardan; "then savants have measured and counted these oscillations! All these figures, friend Barbicane, are savants' figures, which reach the ear but say nothing to the mind."

"But they are obliged to have recourse to figures."

"No. It would be much better to compare. A billion signifies nothing. An object of comparison explains everything. Example—When you tell me that Uranus is 76 times larger than the earth, Saturn 900 times larger, Jupiter 1,300 times larger, the sun 1,300,000 times larger, I am not much wiser. So I much prefer the old comparisons of the Double Liegoise that simply tells you, 'The sun is a pumpkin two feet in diameter, Jupiter an orange, Saturn a Blenheim apple, Neptune a large cherry, Uranus a smaller cherry, the earth a pea, Venus a green pea, Mars the head of a large pin, Mercury a grain of mustard, and Juno, Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas fine grains of sand!' Then I know what it means!"

After this tirade of Michel Ardan's against savants and their billions, which he delivered without stopping to take breath, they set about burying Satellite. He was to be thrown into space like sailors throw a corpse into the sea.

As President Barbicane had recommended, they had to act quickly so as to lose as little air as possible. The bolts upon the right-hand port-hole were carefully unscrewed, and an opening of about half a yard made, whilst Michel prepared to hurl his dog into space. The window, worked by a powerful lever, which conquered the pressure of air in the interior upon the sides of the projectile, moved upon its hinges, and Satellite was thrown out. Scarcely a particle of air escaped, and the operation succeeded so well that later on Barbicane did not fear to get rid of all the useless rubbish that encumbered the vehicle in the same way.



CHAPTER VI.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

On the 4th of December, at 5 a.m. by terrestrial reckoning, the travellers awoke, having been fifty-four hours on their journey. They had only been five hours and forty minutes more than half the time assigned for the accomplishment of their journey, but they had come more than seven-tenths of the distance. This peculiarity was due to their regularly-decreasing speed.

When they looked at the earth through the port-light at the bottom, it only looked like a black spot drowned in the sun's rays. No crescent or pale light was now to be seen. The next day at midnight the earth would be new at the precise moment when the moon would be full. Above, the Queen of Night was nearing the line followed by the projectile, so as to meet it at the hour indicated. All around the dark vault was studded with brilliant specks which seemed to move slowly; but through the great distance they were at their relative size did not seem to alter much. The sun and the stars appeared exactly as they do from the earth. The moon was considerably enlarged; but the travellers' not very powerful telescopes did not as yet allow them to make very useful observations on her surface, or to reconnoitre the topographical or geological details.

The time went by in interminable conversations. The talk was especially about the moon. Each brought his contingent of particular knowledge. Barbicane's and Nicholl's were always serious, Michel Ardan's always fanciful. The projectile, its situation and direction, the incidents that might arise, the precautions necessitated by its fall upon the moon, all this afforded inexhaustible material for conjecture.

Whilst breakfasting a question of Michel's relative to the projectile provoked a rather curious answer from Barbicane, and one worthy of being recorded.

Michel, supposing the bullet to be suddenly stopped whilst still endowed with its formidable initial velocity, wished to know what the consequences would have been.

"But," answered Barbicane, "I don't see how the projectile could have been stopped."

"But let us suppose it," answered Nicholl.

"It is an impossible supposition," replied the practical president, "unless the force of impulsion had failed. But in that case its speed would have gradually decreased, and would not have stopped abruptly."

"Admit that it had struck against some body in space."

"What body?"

"The enormous meteor we met."

"Then," said Nicholl, "the projectile would have been broken into a thousand pieces, and we with it."

"More than that," answered Barbicane, "we should have been burnt alive."

"Burnt!" exclaimed Michel. "I regret it did not happen for us just to see."

"And you would have seen with a vengeance," answered Barbicane. "It is now known that heat is only a modification of movement when water is heated—that is to say, when heat is added to it—that means the giving of movement to its particles."

"That is an ingenious theory!" said Michel.

"And a correct one, my worthy friend, for it explains all the phenomena of caloric. Heat is only molecular movement, a single oscillation of the particles of a body. When the break is put on a train it stops. But what becomes of the movement which animated it? Why do they grease the axles of the wheels? In order to prevent them catching fire from the movement lost by transformation. Do you understand?"

"Admirably," answered Michel. "For example, when I have been running some time, and am covered with sweat, why am I forced to stop? Simply because my movement has been transformed into heat."

Barbicane could not help laughing at this repartie of Michel's. Then resuming his theory—

"Thus," said he, "in case of a collision, it would have happened to our projectile as it does to the metal cannon-ball after striking armour-plate; it would fall burning, because its movement had been transformed into heat. In consequence, I affirm that if our bullet had struck against the asteroid, its speed, suddenly annihilated, would have produced heat enough to turn it immediately into vapour."

"Then," asked Nicholl, "what would happen if the earth were to be suddenly stopped in her movement of translation?"

"Her temperature would be carried to such a point," answered Barbicane, "that she would be immediately reduced to vapour."

"Good," said Michel; "that means of ending the world would simplify many things."

"And suppose the earth were to fall upon the sun?" said Nicholl.

"According to calculations," answered Barbicane, "that would develop a heat equal to that produced by 1,600 globes of coal, equal in volume to the terrestrial globe."

"A good increase of temperature for the sun," replied Michel Ardan, "of which the inhabitants of Uranus or Neptune will probably not complain, for they must be dying of cold on their planet."

"Thus, then, my friends, any movement suddenly stopped produces heat. This theory makes it supposed that the sun is constantly fed by an incessant fall of bodies upon its surface. It has been calculated—"

"Now I shall be crushed," murmured Michel, "for figures are coming."

"It has been calculated," continued Barbicane imperturbably, "that the shock of each asteroid upon the sun must produce heat equal to that of 4,000 masses of coal of equal volume."

"And what is the heat of the sun?" asked Michel.

"It is equal to that which would be produced by a stratum of coal surrounding the sun to a depth of twenty-seven kilometres."

"And that heat—"

"Could boil 2,900,000,000 of cubic myriametres of water an hour." (A myriametre is equal to rather more than 6.2138 miles, or 6 miles 1 furlong 28 poles.)

"And we are not roasted by it?" cried Michel.

"No," answered Barbicane, "because the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs four-tenths of the solar heat. Besides, the quantity of heat intercepted by the earth is only two thousand millionth of the total."

"I see that all is for the best," replied Michel, "and that our atmosphere is a useful invention, for it not only allows us to breathe, but actually prevents us roasting."

"Yes," said Nicholl, "but, unfortunately, it will not be the same on the moon."

"Bah!" said Michel, always confident. "If there are any inhabitants they breathe. If there are no longer any they will surely have left enough oxygen for three people, if only at the bottom of those ravines where it will have accumulated by reason of its weight! Well, we shall not climb the mountains! That is all."

And Michel, getting up, went to look at the lunar disc, which was shining with intolerable brilliancy.

"Faith!" said he, "it must be hot up there."

"Without reckoning," answered Nicholl, "that daylight lasts 360 hours."

"And by way of compensation night has the same duration," said Barbicane, "and as heat is restored by radiation, their temperature must be that of planetary space."

"A fine country truly!" said Nicholl.

"Never mind! I should like to be there already! It will be comical to have the earth for a moon, to see it rise on the horizon, to recognise the configuration of its continents, to say to oneself, 'There's America and there's Europe;' then to follow it till it is lost in the rays of the sun! By-the-bye, Barbicane, have the Selenites any eclipses?"

"Yes, eclipses of the sun," answered Barbicane, "when the centres of the three stars are on the same line with the earth in the middle. But they are merely annular eclipses, during which the earth, thrown like a screen across the solar disc, allows the greater part to be seen."

"Why is there no total eclipse?" asked Nicholl. "Is it because the cone of shade thrown by the earth does not extend beyond the moon?"

"Yes, if you do not take into account the refraction produced by the terrestrial atmosphere, not if you do take that refraction into account. Thus, let delta be the horizontal parallax and p the apparent semidiameter—"

"Ouf!" said Michel, "half of v zero square! Do speak the vulgar tongue, man of algebra!"

"Well, then, in popular language," answered Barbicane, "the mean distance between the moon and the earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the length of the cone of shadow, by dint of refraction, is reduced to less than forty-two radii. It follows, therefore, that during the eclipses the moon is beyond the cone of pure shade, and the sun sends it not only rays from its edges, but also rays from its centre."

"Then," said Michel in a grumbling tone, "why is there any eclipse when there ought to be none?"

"Solely because the solar rays are weakened by the refraction, and the atmosphere which they traverse extinguishes the greater part of them."

"That reason satisfies me," answered Michel; "besides, we shall see for ourselves when we get there. Now, Barbicane, do you believe that the moon is an ancient comet?"

"What an idea!"

"Yes," replied Michel, with amiable conceit, "I have a few ideas of that kind."

"But that idea does not originate with Michel," answered Nicholl.

"Then I am only a plagiarist."

"Without doubt," answered Nicholl. "According to the testimony of the ancients, the Arcadians pretended that their ancestors inhabited the earth before the moon became her satellite. Starting from this fact, certain savants think the moon was a comet which its orbit one day brought near enough to the earth to be retained by terrestrial attraction."

"And what truth is there in that hypothesis?" asked Michel.

"None," answered Barbicane, "and the proof is that the moon has not kept a trace of the gaseous envelope that always accompanies comets."

"But," said Nicholl, "might not the moon, before becoming the earth's satellite, have passed near enough to the sun to leave all her gaseous substances by evaporation?"

"It might, friend Nicholl, but it is not probable."

"Why?"

"Because—because, I really don't know."

"Ah, what hundreds of volumes we might fill with what we don't know!" exclaimed Michel. "But I say," he continued, "what time is it?"

"Three o'clock," answered Nicholl.

"How the time goes," said Michel, "in the conversation of savants like us! Decidedly I feel myself getting too learned! I feel that I am becoming a well of knowledge!"

So saying, Michel climbed to the roof of the projectile, "in order better to observe the moon," he pretended. In the meanwhile his companions watched the vault of space through the lower port-light. There was nothing fresh to signalise.

When Michel Ardan came down again he approached the lateral port-light, and suddenly uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"What is the matter now?" asked Barbicane.

The president approached the glass and saw a sort of flattened sack floating outside at some yards' distance from the projectile. This object seemed motionless like the bullet, and was consequently animated with the same ascensional movement.

"Whatever can that machine be?" said Michel Ardan. "Is it one of the corpuscles of space which our projectile holds in its radius of attraction, and which will accompany it as far as the moon?"

"What I am astonished at," answered Nicholl, "is that the specific weight of this body, which is certainly superior to that of the bullet, allows it to maintain itself so rigorously on its level."

"Nicholl," said Barbicane, after a moment's reflection, "I do not know what that object is, but I know perfectly why it keeps on a level with the projectile."

"Why, pray?"

"Because we are floating in the void where bodies fall or move—which is the same thing—with equal speed whatever their weight or form may be. It is the air which, by its resistance, creates differences in weight. When you pneumatically create void in a tube, the objects you throw down it, either lead or feathers, fall with the same rapidity. Here in space you have the same cause and the same effect."

"True," said Nicholl, "and all we throw out of the projectile will accompany us to the moon."

"Ah! what fools we are!" cried Michel.

"Why this qualification?" asked Barbicane.

"Because we ought to have filled the projectile with useful objects, books, instruments, tools, &c. We could have thrown them all out, and they would all have followed in our wake! But, now I think of it, why can't we take a walk outside this? Why can't we go into space through the port-light? What delight it would be to be thus suspended in ether, more favoured even than birds that are forced to flap their wings to sustain them!"

"Agreed," said Barbicane, "but how are we to breathe?"

"Confounded air to fail so inopportunely!"

"But if it did not fail, Michel, your density being inferior to that of the projectile, you would soon remain behind."

"Then it is a vicious circle."

"All that is most vicious."

"And we must remain imprisoned in our vehicle."

"Yes, we must."

"Ah!" cried Michel in a formidable voice.

"What is the matter with you?" asked Nicholl.

"I know, I guess what this pretended asteroid is! It is not a broken piece of planet!"

"What is it, then?" asked Nicholl.

"It is our unfortunate dog! It is Diana's husband!"

In fact, this deformed object, reduced to nothing, and quite unrecognisable, was the body of Satellite flattened like a bagpipe without wind, and mounting, for ever mounting!



CHAPTER VII.

A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION.

Thus a curious but logical, strange yet logical phenomenon took place under these singular conditions. Every object thrown out of the projectile would follow the same trajectory and only stop when it did. That furnished a text for conversation which the whole evening could not exhaust. The emotion of the three travellers increased as they approached the end of their journey. They expected unforeseen incidents, fresh phenomena, and nothing would have astonished them under present circumstances. Their excited imagination outdistanced the projectile, the speed of which diminished notably without their feeling it. But the moon grew larger before their eyes, and they thought they had only to stretch out their hands to touch it.

The next day, the 5th of December, they were all wide awake at 5 a.m. That day was to be the last of their journey if the calculations were exact. That same evening, at midnight, within eighteen hours, at the precise moment of full moon, they would reach her brilliant disc. The next midnight would bring them to the goal of their journey, the most extraordinary one of ancient or modern times. At early dawn, through the windows made silvery with her rays, they saluted the Queen of Night with a confident and joyful hurrah.

The moon was sailing majestically across the starry firmament. A few more degrees and she would reach that precise point in space where the projectile was to meet her. According to his own observations, Barbicane thought that he should accost her in her northern hemisphere, where vast plains extend and mountains are rare—a favourable circumstance if the lunar atmosphere was, according to received opinion, stored up in deep places only.

"Besides," observed Michel Ardan, "a plain is more suitable for landing upon than a mountain. A Selenite landed in Europe on the summit of Mont Blanc, or in Asia on a peak of the Himalayas, would not be precisely at his destination!"

"What is more," added Nicholl, "on a plain the projectile will remain motionless after it has touched the ground, whilst it would roll down a hill like an avalanche, and as we are not squirrels we should not come out safe and sound. Therefore all is for the best."

In fact, the success of the audacious enterprise no longer appeared doubtful. Still one reflection occupied Barbicane; but not wishing to make his two companions uneasy, he kept silence upon it.

The direction of the projectile towards the northern hemisphere proved that its trajectory had been slightly modified. The aim, mathematically calculated, ought to have sent the bullet into the very centre of the lunar disc. If it did not arrive there it would be because it had deviated. What had caused it? Barbicane could not imagine nor determine the importance of this deviation, for there was no datum to go upon. He hoped, however, that the only result would be to take them towards the upper edge of the moon, a more suitable region for landing.

Barbicane, therefore, without saying anything to his friends, contented himself with frequently observing the moon, trying to see if the direction of the projectile would not change. For the situation would have been so terrible had the bullet, missing its aim, been dragged beyond the lunar disc and fallen into interplanetary space.

At that moment the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc, already showed her convexity. If the sun's rays had reached her obliquely the shadow then thrown would have made the high mountains stand out. They could have seen the gaping craters and the capricious furrows that cut up the immense plains. But all relief was levelled in the intense brilliancy. Those large spots that give the appearance of a human face to the moon were scarcely distinguishable.

"It may be a face," said Michel Ardan, "but I am sorry for the amiable sister of Apollo, her face is so freckled!"

In the meantime the travellers so near their goal ceaselessly watched this new world. Their imagination made them take walks over these unknown countries. They climbed the elevated peaks. They descended to the bottom of the large amphitheatres. Here and there they thought they saw vast seas scarcely kept together under an atmosphere so rarefied, and streams of water that poured them their tribute from the mountains. Leaning over the abyss they hoped to catch the noise of this orb for ever mute in the solitudes of the void.

This last day left them the liveliest remembrances. They noted down the least details. A vague uneasiness took possession of them as they approached their goal. This uneasiness would have been doubled if they had felt how slight their speed was. It appeared quite insufficient to take them to the end of their journey. This was because the projectile scarcely "weighed" anything. Its weight constantly decreased, and would be entirely annihilated on that line where the lunar and terrestrial attractions neutralise each other, causing surprising effects.

Nevertheless, in spite of his preoccupations, Michel Ardan did not forget to prepare the morning meal with his habitual punctuality. They ate heartily. Nothing was more excellent than their broth liquefied by the heat of the gas. Nothing better than these preserved meats. A few glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, and caused Michel Ardan to remark that the lunar vines, warmed by this ardent sun, ought to distil the most generous wines—that is, if they existed. Any way, the far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his collection some precious cuttings of the Medoc and Cote d'Or, upon which he counted particularly.

The Reiset and Regnault apparatus always worked with extreme precision. The air was kept in a state of perfect purity. Not a particle of carbonic acid resisted the potash, and as to the oxygen, that, as Captain Nicholl said, was of "first quality." The small amount of humidity in the projectile mixed with this air and tempered its dryness, and many Paris, London, or New York apartments and many theatres do not certainly fulfil hygienic conditions so well.

But in order to work regularly this apparatus had to be kept going regularly. Each morning Michel inspected the escape regulators, tried the taps, and fixed by the pyrometer the heat of the gas. All had gone well so far, and the travellers, imitating the worthy J.T. Maston, began to get so stout that they would not be recognisable if their imprisonment lasted several months. They behaved like chickens in a cage—they fattened.

Looking through the port lights Barbicane saw the spectre of the dog, and the different objects thrown out of the projectile, which obstinately accompanied it. Diana howled lamentably when she perceived the remains of Satellite. All the things seemed as motionless as if they had rested upon solid ground.

"Do you know, my friends," said Michel Ardan, "that if one of us had succumbed to the recoil shock at departure we should have been much embarrassed as to how to get rid of him? You see the accusing corpse would have followed us in space like remorse!"

"That would have been sad," said Nicholl.

"Ah!" continued Michel, "what I regret is our not being able to take a walk outside. What delight it would be to float in this radiant ether, to bathe in these pure rays of the sun! If Barbicane had only thought of furnishing us with diving-dresses and air-pumps I should have ventured outside, and have assumed the attitude of a flying-horse on the summit of the projectile."

"Ah, old fellow!" answered Barbicane, "you would not have stayed there long in spite of your diving-dress; you would have burst like an obus by the expansion of air inside you, or rather like a balloon that goes up too high. So regret nothing, and do not forget this: while we are moving in the void you must do without any sentimental promenade out of the projectile."

Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced in a certain measure. He agreed that the thing was difficult, but not "impossible;" that was a word he never uttered.

The conversation passed from this subject to another, and never languished an instant. It seemed to the three friends that under these conditions ideas came into their heads like leaves in the first warm days of spring.

Amidst the questions and answers that crossed each other during this morning, Nicholl asked one that did not get an immediate solution.

"I say," said he, "it is all very well to go to the moon, but how shall we get back again?"

"What do you mean by that, Nicholl?" asked Barbicane gravely.

"It seems to me very inopportune to ask about getting away from a country before you get to it," added Michel.

"I don't ask that question because I want to draw back, but I repeat my question, and ask, 'How shall we get back?'"

"I have not the least idea," answered Barbicane.

"And as for me," said Michel, "if I had known how to come back I should not have gone."

"That is what you call answering," cried Nicholl.

"I approve of Michel's words, and add that the question has no actual interest. We will think about that later on, when we want to return. Though the Columbiad will not be there, the projectile will."

"Much good that will be, a bullet without a gun!"

"A gun can be made, and so can powder! Neither metal, saltpetre, nor coal can be wanting in the bowels of the moon. Besides, in order to return you have only the lunar attraction to conquer, and you will only have 8,000 leagues to go so as to fall on the terrestrial globe by the simple laws of weight."

"That is enough," said Michel, getting animated. "Let us hear no more about returning. As to communicating with our ancient colleagues upon earth, that will not be difficult."

"How are we to do that, pray?"

"By means of meteors hurled by the lunar volcanoes."

"A good idea, Michel," answered Barbicane. "Laplace has calculated that a force five times superior to that of our cannons would suffice to send a meteor from the moon to the earth. Now there is no volcano that has not a superior force of propulsion."

"Hurrah!" cried Michel. "Meteors will be convenient postmen and will not cost anything! And how we shall laugh at the postal service! But now I think—"

"What do you think?"

"A superb idea! Why did we not fasten a telegraph wire to our bullet? We could have exchanged telegrams with the earth!"

"And the weight of a wire 86,000 leagues long," answered Nicholl, "does that go for nothing?"

"Yes, for nothing! We should have trebled the charge of the Columbiad! We could have made it four times—five times—greater!" cried Michel, whose voice became more and more violent.

"There is a slight objection to make to your project," answered Barbicane. "It is that during the movement of rotation of the globe our wire would have been rolled round it like a chain round a windlass, and it would inevitably have dragged us down to the earth again."

"By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!" said Michel, "I have nothing but impracticable ideas to-day—ideas worthy of J.T. Maston! But now I think of it, if we do not return to earth J.T. Maston will certainly come to us!"

"Yes! he will come," replied Barbicane; "he is a worthy and courageous comrade. Besides, what could be easier? Is not the Columbiad still lying in Floridian soil? Is cotton and nitric acid wanting wherewith to manufacture the projectile? Will not the moon again pass the zenith of Florida? In another eighteen years will she not occupy exactly the same place that she occupies to-day?"

"Yes," repeated Michel—"yes, Maston will come, and with him our friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, and all the members of the Gun Club, and they will be welcome! Later on trains of projectiles will be established between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J.T. Maston!"

It is probable that if the Honourable J.T. Maston did not hear the hurrahs uttered in his honour his ears tingled at least. What was he doing then? He was no doubt stationed in the Rocky Mountains at Long's Peak, trying to discover the invisible bullet gravitating in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions it must be acknowledged that they were not behindhand with him, and that, under the influence of singular exaltation, they consecrated their best thoughts to him.

But whence came the animation that grew visibly greater in the inhabitants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be questioned. Must this strange erethismus of the brain be attributed to the exceptional circumstances of the time, to that proximity of the Queen of Night from which a few hours only separated them, or to some secret influence of the moon acting on their nervous system? Their faces became as red as if exposed to the reverberation of a furnace; their respiration became more active, and their lungs played like forge-bellows; their eyes shone with extraordinary flame, and their voices became formidably loud, their words escaped like a champagne-cork driven forth by carbonic acid gas; their gestures became disquieting, they wanted so much room to perform them in. And, strange to say, they in no wise perceived this excessive tension of the mind.

"Now," said Nicholl in a sharp tone—"now that I do not know whether we shall come back from the moon, I will know what we are going there for!"

"What we are going there for!" answered Barbicane, stamping as if he were in a fencing-room; "I don't know."

"You don't know!" cried Michel with a shout that provoked a sonorous echo in the projectile.

"No, I have not the least idea!" answered Barbicane, shouting in unison with his interlocutor.

"Well, then, I know," answered Michel.

"Speak, then," said Nicholl, who could no longer restrain the angry tones of his voice.

"I shall speak if it suits me!" cried Michel, violently seizing his companion's arm. "It must suit you!" said Barbicane, with eyes on fire and threatening hands. "It was you who drew us into this terrible journey, and we wish to know why!"

"Yes," said the captain, "now I don't know where I am going, I will know why I am going."

"Why?" cried Michel, jumping a yard high—"why? To take possession of the moon in the name of the United States! To add a fortieth State to the Union! To colonise the lunar regions, to cultivate them, people them, to take them all the wonders of art, science, and industry! To civilise the Selenites, unless they are more civilised than we are, and to make them into a republic if they have not already done it for themselves!"

"If there are any Selenites!" answered Nicholl, who under the empire of this inexplicable intoxication became very contradictory.

"Who says there are no Selenites?" cried Michel in a threatening tone.

"I do!" shouted Nicholl.

"Captain," said Michel, "do not repeat that insult or I will knock your teeth down your throat!"

The two adversaries were about to rush upon one another, and this incoherent discussion was threatening to degenerate into a battle, when Barbicane interfered.

"Stop, unhappy men," said he, putting his two companions back to back, "if there are no Selenites, we will do without them!"

"Yes!" exclaimed Michel, who did not care more about them than that. "We have nothing to do with the Selenites! Bother the Selenites!"

"The empire of the moon shall be ours," said Nicholl. "Let us found a Republic of three!"

"I shall be the Congress," cried Michel.

"And I the Senate," answered Nicholl.

"And Barbicane the President," shouted Michel.

"No President elected by the nation!" answered Barbicane.

"Well, then, a President elected by the Congress," exclaimed Michel; "and as I am the Congress I elect you unanimously."

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah for President Barbicane!" exclaimed Nicholl.

"Hip—hip—hip! hurrah!" vociferated Michel Ardan.

Then the President and Senate struck up "Yankee Doodle" as loudly as they could, whilst the Congress shouted the virile "Marseillaise."

Then began a frantic dance with maniacal gestures, mad stamping, and somersaults of boneless clowns. Diana took part in the dance, howling too, and jumped to the very roof of the projectile. An inexplicable flapping of wings and cock-crows of singular sonority were heard. Five or six fowls flew about striking the walls like mad bats.

Then the three travelling companions, whose lungs were disorganised under some incomprehensible influence, more than intoxicated, burnt by the air that had set their breathing apparatus on fire, fell motionless upon the bottom of the projectile.



CHAPTER VIII.

AT SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN LEAGUES.

What had happened? What was the cause of that singular intoxication, the consequences of which might prove so disastrous? Simply carelessness on Michel's part, which Nicholl was able to remedy in time.

After a veritable swoon, which lasted a few minutes, the captain, who was the first to regain consciousness, soon collected his intellectual faculties.

Although he had breakfasted two hours before, he began to feel as hungry as if he had not tasted food for several days. His whole being, his brain and stomach, were excited to the highest point.

He rose, therefore, and demanded a supplementary collation from Michel, who was still unconscious, and did not answer. Nicholl, therefore, proceeded to prepare some cups of tea, in order to facilitate the absorption of a dozen sandwiches. He busied himself first with lighting a fire, and so struck a match.

What was his surprise to see the sulphur burn with extraordinary and almost unbearable brilliancy! From the jet of gas he lighted rose a flame equal to floods of electric light.

A revelation took place in Nicholl's mind. This intensity of light, the physiological disturbance in himself, the extra excitement of all his moral and sensitive faculties—he understood it all.

"The oxygen!" he exclaimed.

And leaning over the air-apparatus, he saw that the tap was giving out a flood of colourless, savourless, and odourless gas, eminently vital, but which in a pure state produces the gravest disorders in the constitution. Through carelessness Michel had left the tap full on. Nicholl made haste to turn off this flow of oxygen with which the atmosphere was saturated, and which would have caused the death of the travellers, not by suffocation, but by combustion.

An hour afterwards the air was relieved, and gave their normal play to the lungs. By degrees the three friends recovered from their intoxication; but they were obliged to recover from their oxygen like a drunkard from his wine.

When Michel knew his share of responsibility in this incident he did not appear in the least disconcerted. This unexpected intoxication broke the monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said under its influence, but they had been forgotten as soon as said.

"Then," added the merry Frenchman, "I am not sorry for having experienced the effect of this captious gas. Do you know, my friends, that there might be a curious establishment set up with oxygen-rooms, where people whose constitutions are weak might live a more active life during a few hours at least? Suppose we had meetings where the air could be saturated with this heroic fluid, theatres where the managers would send it out in strong doses, what passion there would be in the souls of actors and spectators, what fire and what enthusiasm! And if, instead of a simple assembly, a whole nation could be saturated with it, what activity, what a supplement of life it would receive! Of an exhausted nation it perhaps would make a great and strong nation, and I know more than one state in old Europe that ought to put itself under the oxygen regime in the interest of its health."

Michel spoke with as much animation as if the tap were still full on. But with one sentence Barbicane damped his enthusiasm.

"All that is very well, friend Michel," he said, "but now perhaps you will tell us where those fowls that joined in our concert came from."

"Those fowls?"

"Yes."

In fact, half-a-dozen hens and a superb cock were flying hither and thither.

"Ah, the stupids!" cried Michel. "It was the oxygen that put them in revolt."

"But what are you going to do with those fowls?" asked Barbicane.

"Acclimatise them in the moon of course! For the sake of a joke, my worthy president; simply a joke that has unhappily come to nothing! I wanted to let them out on the lunar continent without telling you! How astounded you would have been to see these terrestrial poultry pecking the fields of the moon!"

"Ah, gamin, you eternal boy!" answered Barbicane, "you don't want oxygen to make you out of your senses! You are always what we were under the influence of this gas! You are always insane!"

"Ah! how do we know we were not wiser then?" replied Michel Ardan.

After this philosophical reflection the three friends repaired the disorder in the projectile. Cock and hens were put back in their cage. But as they were doing this Barbicane and his two companions distinctly perceived a fresh phenomenon.

Since the moment they had left the earth their own weight, that of the bullet and the objects it contained, had suffered progressive diminution. Though they could not have any experience of this in the projectile, a moment must come when the effect upon themselves and the tools and instruments they used would be felt.

Of course scales would not have indicated this loss of weight, for the weights used would have lost precisely as much as the object itself; but a spring weighing-machine, the tension of which is independent of attraction, would have given the exact valuation of this diminution.

It is well known that attraction, or weight, is in proportion to the bulk, and in inverse proportion to the square of distances. Hence this consequence. If the earth had been alone in space, if the other heavenly bodies were to be suddenly annihilated, the projectile, according to Newton's law, would have weighed less according to its distance from the earth, but without ever losing its weight entirely, for the terrestrial attraction would always have made itself felt, no matter at what distance.

But in the case with which we are dealing, a moment must come when the projectile would not be at all under the law of gravitation, after allowing for the other celestial bodies, whose effect could not be set down as zero.

In fact, the trajectory of the projectile was between the earth and the moon. As it went farther away from the earth terrestrial attraction would be diminished in inverse proportion to the square of distances, but the lunar attraction would be augmented in the same proportion. A point must, therefore, be reached where these two attractions would neutralise each other, and the bullet would have no weight at all. If the volumes of the moon and earth were equal, this point would have been reached at an equal distance between the two bodies. But by taking their difference of bulk into account it was easy to calculate that this point would be situated at 47/52 of the journey, or at 78,114 leagues from the earth.

At this point a body that had no principle of velocity or movement in itself would remain eternally motionless, being equally attracted by the two heavenly bodies, and nothing drawing it more towards one than the other.

Now if the force of impulsion had been exactly calculated the projectile ought to reach that point with no velocity, having lost all weight like the objects it contained.

What would happen then? Three hypotheses presented themselves.

Either the projectile would have kept some velocity, and passing the point of equal attraction, would fall on the moon by virtue of the excess of lunar attraction over terrestrial attraction.

Or velocity sufficient to reach the neutral point being wanting, it would fall back on the earth by virtue of the excess of terrestrial attraction over lunar attraction.

Or lastly, endowed with sufficient velocity to reach the neutral point, but insufficient to pass it, it would remain eternally suspended in the same place, like the pretended coffin of Mahomet, between the zenith and nadir.

Such was the situation, and Barbicane clearly explained the consequences to his travelling companions. They were interested to the highest degree. How were they to know when they had reached this neutral point, situated at 78,114 leagues from the earth, at the precise moment when neither they nor the objects contained in the projectile should be in any way subject to the laws of weight?

Until now the travellers, though they had remarked that this action diminished little by little, had not yet perceived its total absence. But that day, about 11 a.m., Nicholl having let a tumbler escape from his hand, instead of falling, it remained suspended in the air.

"Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "this is a little amusing chemistry!"

And immediately different objects, weapons, bottles, &c, left to themselves, hung suspended as if by miracle. Diana, too, lifted up by Michel into space, reproduced, but without trickery, the marvellous suspensions effected by Robert-Houdin and Maskelyne and Cook.

The three adventurous companions, surprised and stupefied in spite of their scientific reasoning, carried into the domain of the marvellous, felt weight go out of their bodies. When they stretched out their arms they felt no inclination to drop them. Their heads vacillated on their shoulders. Their feet no longer kept at the bottom of the projectile. They were like staggering drunkards. Imagination has created men deprived of their reflection, others deprived of their shadows! But here reality, by the neutrality of active forces, made men in whom nothing had any weight, and who weighed nothing themselves.

Suddenly Michel, making a slight spring, left the floor and remained suspended in the air like the good monk in Murillo's Cuisine des Anges. His two friends joined him in an instant, and all three, in the centre of the projectile, figured a miraculous ascension.

"Is it believable? Is it likely? Is it possible?" cried Michel. "No. And yet it exists! Ah! if Raphael could have seen us like this what an Assumption he could have put upon canvas!"

"The Assumption cannot last," answered Barbicane. "If the projectile passes the neutral point, the lunar attraction will draw us to the moon."

"Then our feet will rest upon the roof of the projectile,' answered Michel.

"No," said Barbicane, "because the centre of gravity in the projectile is very low, and it will turn over gradually."

"Then all our things will be turned upside down for certain!"

"Do not alarm yourself, Michel," answered Nicholl. "There is nothing of the kind to be feared. Not an object will move; the projectile will turn insensibly."

"In fact," resumed Barbicane, "when it has cleared the point of equal attraction, its bottom, relatively heavier, will drag it perpendicularly down to the moon. But in order that such a phenomenon should take place we must pass the neutral line."

"Passing the neutral line!" cried Michel. "Then let us do like the sailors who pass the equator—let us water our passage!"

A slight side movement took Michel to the padded wall. Thence he took a bottle and glasses, placed them "in space" before his companions, and merrily touching glasses, they saluted the line with a triple hurrah.

This influence of the attractions lasted scarcely an hour. The travellers saw themselves insensibly lowered towards the bottom, and Barbicane thought he remarked that the conical end of the projectile deviated slightly from the normal direction towards the moon. By an inverse movement the bottom side approached it. Lunar attraction was therefore gaining over terrestrial attraction. The fall towards the moon began, insensibly as yet; it could only be that of a millimetre (0.03937 inch), and a third in the first second. But the attractive force would gradually increase, the fall would be more accentuated, the projectile, dragged down by its bottom side, would present its cone to the earth, and would fall with increasing velocity until it reached the Selenite surface. Now nothing could prevent the success of the enterprise, and Nicholl and Michel Ardan shared Barbicane's joy.

Then they chatted about all the phenomena that had astounded them one after another, especially about the neutralisation of the laws of weight. Michel Ardan, always full of enthusiasm, wished to deduce consequences which were only pure imagination.

"Ah! my worthy friends," he cried, "what progress we should make could we but get rid upon earth of this weight, this chain that rivets us to her! It would be the prisoner restored to liberty! There would be no more weariness either in arms or legs. And if it is true that, in order to fly upon the surface of the earth, to sustain yourself in the air by a simple action of the muscles, it would take a force 150 times superior to that we possess, a simple act of will, a caprice, would transport us into space, and attraction would not exist."

"In fact," said Nicholl, laughing, "if they succeeded in suppressing gravitation, like pain is suppressed by anaesthesia, it would change the face of modern society!"

"Yes," cried Michel, full of his subject, "let us destroy weight and have no more burdens! No more cranes, screw-jacks, windlasses, cranks, or other machines will be wanted."

"Well said," replied Barbicane; "but if nothing had any weight nothing would keep in its place, not even the hat on your head, worthy Michel; nor your house, the stones of which only adhere by their weight! Not even ships, whose stability upon the water is only a consequence of weight. Not even the ocean, whose waves would no longer be held in equilibrium by terrestrial attraction. Lastly, not even the atmosphere, the molecules of which, being no longer held together, would disperse into space!"

"That is a pity," replied Michel. "There is nothing like positive people for recalling you brutally to reality!"

"Nevertheless, console yourself, Michel," resumed Barbicane, "for if no star could exist from which the laws of weight were banished, you are at least going to pay a visit where gravity is much less than upon earth."

"The moon?"

"Yes, the moon, on the surface of which objects weigh six times less than upon the surface of the earth, a phenomenon very easy to demonstrate."

"And shall we perceive it?" asked Michel. "Evidently, for 400 lbs. only weigh 60 lbs. on the surface of the moon."

"Will not our muscular strength be diminished?"

"Not at all. Instead of jumping one yard you will be able to rise six."

"Then we shall be Hercules in the moon," cried Michel.

"Yes," replied Nicholl, "and the more so because if the height of the Selenites is in proportion to the bulk of their globe they will be hardly a foot high."

"Liliputians!" replied Michel. "Then I am going to play the role of Gulliver! We shall realise the fable of the giants! That is the advantage of leaving one's own planet to visit the solar world!"

"But if you want to play Gulliver," answered Barbicane, "only visit the inferior planets, such as Mercury, Venus, or Mars, whose bulk is rather less than that of the earth. But do not venture into the big planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, for there the roles would be inverted, and you would become Liliputian."

"And in the sun?"

"In the sun, though its density is four times less than that of the earth, its volume is thirteen hundred and twenty-four thousand times greater, and gravitation there is twenty-seven times greater than upon the surface of our globe. Every proportion kept, the inhabitants ought on an average to be two hundred feet high."

"The devil!" exclaimed Michel. "I should only be a pigmy!"

"Gulliver amongst the giants," said Nicholl.

"Just so," answered Barbicane.

"It would not have been a bad thing to carry some pieces of artillery to defend oneself with."

"Good," replied Barbicane; "your bullets would have no effect on the sun, and they would fall to the ground in a few minutes."

"That's saying a great deal!"

"It is a fact," answered Barbicane. "Gravitation is so great on that enormous planet that an object weighing 70 lbs. on the earth would weigh 1,930 lbs. on the surface of the sun. Your hat would weigh 20 lbs.! your cigar 1/2 lb.! Lastly, if you fell on the solar continent your weight would be so great—about 5,000 lbs.—that you could not get up again."

"The devil!" said Michel, "I should have to carry about a portable crane! Well, my friends, let us be content with the moon for to-day. There, at least, we shall cut a great figure! Later on we shall see if we will go to the sun, where you can't drink without a crane to lift the glass to your mouth."



CHAPTER IX.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEVIATION.

Barbicane had now no fear, if not about the issue of the journey, at least about the projectile's force of impulsion. Its own speed would carry it beyond the neutral line. Therefore it would not return to the earth nor remain motionless upon the point of attraction. One hypothesis only remained to be realised, the arrival of the bullet at its goal under the action of lunar attraction.

In reality it was a fall of 8,296 leagues upon a planet, it is true, where the gravity is six times less than upon the earth. Nevertheless it would be a terrible fall, and one against which all precautions ought to be taken without delay.

These precautions were of two sorts; some were for the purpose of deadening the shock at the moment the projectile would touch lunar ground; others were to retard the shock, and so make it less violent.

In order to deaden the shock, it was a pity that Barbicane was no longer able to employ the means that had so usefully weakened the shock at departure—that is to say, the water used as a spring and the movable partitions. The partitions still existed, but water was wanting, for they could not use the reserve for this purpose—that would be precious in case the liquid element should fail on the lunar soil.

Besides, this reserve would not have been sufficient for a spring. The layer of water stored in the projectile at their departure, and on which lay the waterproof disc, occupied no less than three feet in depth, and spread over a surface of not less than fifty-four feet square. Now the receptacles did not contain the fifth part of that. They were therefore obliged to give up this effectual means of deadening the shock.

Fortunately Barbicane, not content with employing water, had furnished the movable disc with strong spring buffers, destined to lessen the shock against the bottom, after breaking the horizontal partitions. These buffers were still in existence; they had only to be fitted on and the movable disc put in its place. All these pieces, easy to handle, as they weighed scarcely anything, could be rapidly mounted.

This was done. The different pieces were adjusted without difficulty. It was only a matter of bolts and screws. There were plenty of tools. The disc was soon fixed on its steel buffers like a table on its legs. One inconvenience resulted from this arrangement. The lower port-hole was covered, and it would be impossible for the travellers to observe the moon through that opening whilst they were being precipitated perpendicularly upon her. But they were obliged to give it up. Besides, through the lateral openings they could still perceive the vast lunar regions, like the earth is seen from the car of a balloon.

This placing of the disc took an hour's work. It was more than noon when the preparations were completed. Barbicane made fresh observations on the inclination of the projectile, but to his great vexation it had not turned sufficiently for a fall; it appeared to be describing a curve parallel with the lunar disc. The Queen of Night was shining splendidly in space, whilst opposite the orb of day was setting her on fire with his rays.

This situation soon became an anxious one.

"Shall we get there?" said Nicholl.

"We must act as though we should," answered Barbicane.

"You are faint-hearted fellows," replied Michel Ardan. "We shall get there, and quicker than we want."

This answer recalled Barbicane to his preparations, and he occupied himself with placing the contrivances destined to retard the fall.

It will be remembered that, at the meeting held in Tampa Town, Florida, Captain Nicholl appeared as Barbicane's enemy, and Michel Ardan's adversary. When Captain Nicholl said that the projectile would be broken like glass, Michel answered that he would retard the fall by means of fusees properly arranged.

In fact, powerful fusees, resting upon the bottom, and being fired outside, might, by producing a recoil action, lessen the speed of the bullet. These fusees were to burn in the void it is true, but oxygen would not fail them, for they would furnish that themselves like the lunar volcanoes, the deflagration of which has never been prevented by the want of atmosphere around the moon.

Barbicane had therefore provided himself with fireworks shut up in little cannons of bored steel, which could be screwed on to the bottom of the projectile. Inside these cannons were level with the bottom; outside they went half a foot beyond it. There were twenty of them. An opening in the disc allowed them to light the match with which each was provided. All the effect took place outside. The exploding mixture had been already rammed into each gun. All they had to do, therefore, was to take up the metallic buffers fixed in the base, and to put these cannons in their place, where they fitted exactly.

This fresh work was ended about 3 p.m., and all precaution taken they had now nothing to do but to wait.

In the meantime the projectile visibly drew nearer the moon. It was, therefore, submitted in some proportion to its influence; but its own velocity also inclined it in an oblique line. Perhaps the result of these two influences would be a line that would become a tangent. But it was certain that the projectile was not falling normally upon the surface of the moon, for its base, by reason of its weight, ought to have been turned towards her.

Barbicane's anxiety was increased on seeing that his bullet resisted the influence of gravitation. It was the unknown that was before him—the unknown of the interstellar regions. He, the savant, believed that he had foreseen the only three hypotheses that were possible—the return to the earth, the fall upon the moon, or stagnation upon the neutral line! And here a fourth hypothesis, full of all the terrors of the infinite, cropped up inopportunely. To face it without flinching took a resolute savant like Barbicane, a phlegmatic being like Nicholl, or an audacious adventurer like Michel Ardan.

Conversation was started on this subject. Other men would have considered the question from a practical point of view. They would have wondered where the projectile would take them to. Not they, however. They sought the cause that had produced this effect.

"So we are off the line," said Michel. "But how is that?"

"I am very much afraid," answered Nicholl, "that notwithstanding all the precautions that were taken, the Columbiad was not aimed correctly. The slightest error would suffice to throw us outside the pale of lunar attraction."

"Then the cannon was pointed badly?" said Michel.

"I do not think so," answered Barbicane. "The cannon was rigorously perpendicular, and its direction towards the zenith of the place was incontestable. The moon passing the zenith, we ought to have reached her at the full. There is another reason, but it escapes me."

"Perhaps we have arrived too late," suggested Nicholl.

"Too late?" said Barbicane.

"Yes," resumed Nicholl. "The notice from the Cambridge Observatory said that the transit ought to be accomplished in ninety-seven hours thirteen minutes and twenty seconds. That means that before that time the moon would not have reached the point indicated, and after she would have passed it."

"Agreed," answered Barbicane. "But we started on the 1st of December at 11h. 13m. 25s. p.m., and we ought to arrive at midnight on the 5th, precisely as the moon is full. Now this is the 5th of December. It is half-past three, and eight hours and a half ought to be sufficient to take us to our goal. Why are we not going towards it?"

"Perhaps the velocity was greater than it ought to have been," answered Nicholl, "for we know now that the initial velocity was greater than it was supposed to be."

"No! a hundred times no!" replied Barbicane. "An excess of velocity, supposing the direction of the projectile to have been correct, would not have prevented us reaching the moon. No! There has been a deviation. We have deviated!"

"Through whom? through what?" asked Nicholl.

"I cannot tell," answered Barbicane.

"Well, Barbicane," then said Michel, "should you like to know what I think about why we have deviated?"

"Say what you think."

"I would not give half a dollar to know! We have deviated, that is a fact. It does not matter much where we are going. We shall soon find out. As we are being carried along into space we shall end by falling into some centre of attraction or another."

Barbicane could not be contented with this indifference of Michel Ardan's. Not that he was anxious about the future. But what he wanted to know, at any price, was why his projectile had deviated.

In the meantime the projectile kept on its course sideways to the moon, and the objects thrown out along with it. Barbicane could even prove by the landmarks upon the moon, which was only at 2,000 leagues' distance, that its speed was becoming uniform—a fresh proof that they were not falling. Its force of impulsion was prevailing over the lunar attraction, but the trajectory of the projectile was certainly taking them nearer the lunar disc, and it might be hoped that at a nearer point the weight would predominate and provoke a fall.

The three friends, having nothing better to do, went on with their observations. They could not, however, yet determine the topography of the satellite. Every relief was levelled under the action of the solar rays.

They watched thus through the lateral windows until 8 p.m. The moon then looked so large that she hid half the firmament from them. The sun on one side, and the Queen of Night on the other, inundated the projectile with light.

At that moment Barbicane thought he could estimate at 700 leagues only the distance that separated them from their goal. The velocity of the projectile appeared to him to be 200 yards a second, or about 170 leagues an hour. The base of the bullet had a tendency to turn towards the moon under the influence of the centripetal force; but the centrifugal force still predominated, and it became probable that the rectilinear trajectory would change to some curve the nature of which could not be determined.

Barbicane still sought the solution of his insoluble problem. The hours went by without result. The projectile visibly drew nearer to the moon, but it was plain that it would not reach her. The short distance at which it would pass her would be the result of two forces, attractive and repulsive, which acted upon the projectile.

"I only pray for one thing," repeated Michel, "and that is to pass near enough to the moon to penetrate her secrets."

"Confound the cause that made our projectile deviate!" cried Nicholl.

"Then," said Barbicane, as if he had been suddenly struck with an idea, "confound that asteroid that crossed our path!"

"Eh?" said Michel Ardan.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicholl.

"I mean," resumed Barbicane, who appeared convinced, "I mean that our deviation is solely due to the influence of that wandering body."

"But it did not even graze us," continued Michel.

"What does that matter? Its bulk, compared with that of our projectile, was enormous, and its attraction was sufficient to have an influence upon our direction."

"That influence must have been very slight," said Nicholl.

"Yes, Nicholl, but slight as it was," answered Barbicane, "upon a distance of 84,000 leagues it was enough to make us miss the moon!"



CHAPTER X.

THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.

Barbicane had evidently found the only plausible reason for the deviation. However slight it had been, it had been sufficient to modify the trajectory of the projectile. It was a fatality. The audacious attempt had miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance, and unless anything unexpected happened, the lunar disc could no longer be reached. Would they pass it near enough to resolve certain problems in physics and geology until then unsolved? This was the only question that occupied the minds of these bold travellers. As to the fate the future held in store for them, they would not even think about it. Yet what was to become of them amidst these infinite solitudes when air failed them? A few more days and they would fall suffocated in this bullet wandering at hazard. But a few days were centuries to these intrepid men, and they consecrated every moment to observing the moon they no longer hoped to reach.

The distance which then separated the projectile from the satellite was estimated at about 200 leagues. Under these conditions, as far as regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travellers were farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of the earth with their powerful telescopes.

It is, in fact, known that the instrument set up by Lord Rosse at Parsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon to within sixteen leagues; and the powerful telescope set up at Long's Peak magnifies 48,000 times, and brings the moon to within less than two leagues, so that objects twelve yards in diameter were sufficiently distinct.

Thus, then, at that distance the topographical details of the moon, seen without a telescope, were not distinctly determined. The eye caught the outline of those vast depressions inappropriately called "seas," but they could not determine their nature. The prominence of the mountains disappeared under the splendid irradiation produced by the reflection of the solar rays. The eye, dazzled as if leaning over a furnace of molten silver, turned from it involuntarily.

However, the oblong form of the orb was already clearly seen.

It appeared like a gigantic egg, with the small end turned towards the earth. The moon, liquid and pliable in the first days of her formation, was originally a perfect sphere. But soon, drawn within the pale of the earth's gravitation, she became elongated under its influence. By becoming a satellite she lost her native purity of form; her centre of gravity was in advance of the centre of her figure, and from this fact some savants draw the conclusion that air and water might have taken refuge on the opposite side of the moon, which is never seen from the earth.

This alteration in the primitive forms of the satellite was only visible for a few moments. The distance between the projectile and the moon diminished visibly; its velocity was considerably less than its initial velocity, but eight or nine times greater than that of our express trains. The oblique direction of the bullet, from its very obliquity, left Michel Ardan some hope of touching the lunar disc at some point or other. He could not believe that he should not get to it. No, he could not believe it, and this he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a better judge, always answered him with pitiless logic.

"No, Michel, no. We can only reach the moon by a fall, and we are not falling. The centripetal force keeps us under the moon's influence, but the centrifugal force sends us irresistibly away from it."

This was said in a tone that deprived Michel Ardan of his last hopes.

The portion of the moon the projectile was approaching was the northern hemisphere. The selenographic maps make it the lower one, because they are generally drawn up according to the image given by the telescopes, and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the Mappa Selenographica of Boeer and Moedler which Barbicane consulted. This northern hemisphere presented vast plains, relieved by isolated mountains.

At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment the travellers ought to have set foot upon her if the unlucky asteroid had not made them deviate from their direction. The orb was exactly in the condition rigorously determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She was mathematically at her perigee, and at the zenith of the twenty-eighth parallel. An observer placed at the bottom of the enormous Columbiad while it is pointed perpendicularly at the horizon would have framed the moon in the mouth of the cannon. A straight line drawn through the axis of the piece would have passed through the centre of the moon.

It need hardly be stated that during the night between the 5th and 6th of December the travellers did not take a minute's rest. Could they have closed their eyes so near to a new world? No. All their feelings were concentrated in one thought—to see! Representatives of the earth, of humanity past and present, all concentrated in themselves, it was through their eyes that the human race looked at these lunar regions and penetrated the secrets of its satellite! A strange emotion filled their hearts, and they went silently from one window to another.

Their observations were noted down by Barbicane, and were made rigorously exact. To make them they had telescopes. To control them they had maps.

The first observer of the moon was Galileo. His poor telescope only magnified thirty times. Nevertheless, in the spots that pitted the lunar disc "like eyes in a peacock's tail," he was the first to recognise mountains, and measure some heights to which he attributed, exaggerating, an elevation equal to the 20th of the diameter of the disc, or 8,000 metres. Galileo drew up no map of his observations.