From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon

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.