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

CHAPTER III

THEIR PLACE OF SHEL­TER

This cu­ri­ous but cer­tain­ly cor­rect ex­pla­na­tion once giv­en, the three friends re­turned to their slum­bers. Could they have found a calmer or more peace­ful spot to sleep in? On the earth, hous­es, towns, cot­tages, and coun­try feel ev­ery shock giv­en to the ex­te­ri­or of the globe. On sea, the ves­sels rocked by the waves are still in mo­tion; in the air, the bal­loon os­cil­lates in­ces­sant­ly on the flu­id stra­ta of divers den­si­ties. This pro­jec­tile alone, float­ing in per­fect space, in the midst of per­fect si­lence, of­fered per­fect re­pose.

Thus the sleep of our ad­ven­tur­ous trav­el­ers might have been in­def­inite­ly pro­longed, if an un­ex­pect­ed noise had not awak­ened them at about sev­en o’clock in the morn­ing of the 2nd of De­cem­ber, eight hours af­ter their de­par­ture.

This noise was a very nat­ural bark­ing.

“The dogs! it is the dogs!” ex­claimed Michel Ar­dan, ris­ing at once.

“They are hun­gry,” said Nicholl.

“By Jove!” replied Michel, “we have for­got­ten them.”

“Where are they?” asked Bar­bi­cane.

They looked and found one of the an­imals crouched un­der the di­van. Ter­ri­fied and shak­en by the ini­tia­to­ry shock, it had re­mained in the cor­ner till its voice re­turned with the pangs of hunger. It was the ami­able Di­ana, still very con­fused, who crept out of her re­treat, though not with­out much per­sua­sion, Michel Ar­dan en­cour­ag­ing her with most gra­cious words.

“Come, Di­ana,” said he: “come, my girl! thou whose des­tiny will be marked in the cy­neget­ic an­nals; thou whom the pa­gans would have giv­en as com­pan­ion to the god Anu­bis, and Chris­tians as friend to St. Roch; thou who art rush­ing in­to in­ter­plan­etary space, and wilt per­haps be the Eve of all Se­len­ite dogs! come, Di­ana, come here.”

Di­ana, flat­tered or not, ad­vanced by de­grees, ut­ter­ing plain­tive cries.

“Good,” said Bar­bi­cane: “I see Eve, but where is Adam?”

“Adam?” replied Michel; “Adam can­not be far off; he is there some­where; we must call him. Satel­lite! here, Satel­lite!”

But Satel­lite did not ap­pear. Di­ana would not leave off howl­ing. They found, how­ev­er, that she was not bruised, and they gave her a pie, which si­lenced her com­plaints. As to Satel­lite, he seemed quite lost. They had to hunt a long time be­fore find­ing him in one of the up­per com­part­ments of the pro­jec­tile, whith­er some un­ac­count­able shock must have vi­olent­ly hurled him. The poor beast, much hurt, was in a piteous state.

“The dev­il!” said Michel.

They brought the un­for­tu­nate dog down with great care. Its skull had been bro­ken against the roof, and it seemed un­like­ly that he could re­cov­er from such a shock. Mean­while, he was stretched com­fort­ably on a cush­ion. Once there, he heaved a sigh.

“We will take care of you,” said Michel; “we are re­spon­si­ble for your ex­is­tence. I would rather lose an arm than a paw of my poor Satel­lite.”

Say­ing which, he of­fered some wa­ter to the wound­ed dog, who swal­lowed it with avid­ity.

This at­ten­tion paid, the trav­el­ers watched the earth and the moon at­ten­tive­ly. The earth was now on­ly dis­cernible by a cloudy disc end­ing in a cres­cent, rather more con­tract­ed than that of the pre­vi­ous evening; but its ex­panse was still enor­mous, com­pared with that of the moon, which was ap­proach­ing near­er and near­er to a per­fect cir­cle.

“By Jove!” said Michel Ar­dan, “I am re­al­ly sor­ry that we did not start when the earth was full, that is to say, when our globe was in op­po­si­tion to the sun.”

“Why?” said Nicholl.

“Be­cause we should have seen our con­ti­nents and seas in a new light– the first re­splen­dent un­der the so­lar rays, the lat­ter cloudy as rep­re­sent­ed on some maps of the world. I should like to have seen those poles of the earth on which the eye of man has nev­er yet rest­ed.

“I dare say,” replied Bar­bi­cane; “but if the earth had been _full_, the moon would have been _new_; that is to say, in­vis­ible, be­cause of the rays of the sun. It is bet­ter for us to see the des­ti­na­tion we wish to reach, than the point of de­par­ture.”

“You are right, Bar­bi­cane,” replied Cap­tain Nicholl; “and, be­sides, when we have reached the moon, we shall have time dur­ing the long lu­nar nights to con­sid­er at our leisure the globe on which our like­ness­es swarm.”

“Our like­ness­es!” ex­claimed Michel Ar­dan; “They are no more our like­ness­es than the Se­len­ites are! We in­hab­it a new world, peo­pled by our­selves– the pro­jec­tile! I am Bar­bi­cane’s like­ness, and Bar­bi­cane is Nicholl’s. Be­yond us, around us, hu­man na­ture is at an end, and we are the on­ly pop­ula­tion of this mi­cro­cosm un­til we be­come pure Se­len­ites.”

“In about eighty-​eight hours,” replied the cap­tain.

“Which means to say?” asked Michel Ar­dan.

“That it is half-​past eight,” replied Nicholl.

“Very well,” re­tort­ed Michel; “then it is im­pos­si­ble for me to find even the shad­ow of a rea­son why we should not go to break­fast.”

In­deed the in­hab­itants of the new star could not live with­out eat­ing, and their stom­achs were suf­fer­ing from the im­pe­ri­ous laws of hunger. Michel Ar­dan, as a French­man, was de­clared chief cook, an im­por­tant func­tion, which raised no ri­val. The gas gave suf­fi­cient heat for the culi­nary ap­pa­ra­tus, and the pro­vi­sion box fur­nished the el­ements of this first feast.

The break­fast be­gan with three bowls of ex­cel­lent soup, thanks to the liq­ue­fac­tion in hot wa­ter of those pre­cious cakes of Liebig, pre­pared from the best parts of the ru­mi­nants of the Pam­pas. To the soup suc­ceed­ed some beef­steaks, com­pressed by an hy­draulic press, as ten­der and suc­cu­lent as if brought straight from the kitchen of an En­glish eat­ing-​house. Michel, who was imag­ina­tive, main­tained that they were even “red.”

Pre­served veg­eta­bles (”fresh­er than na­ture,” said the ami­able Michel) suc­ceed­ed the dish of meat; and was fol­lowed by some cups of tea with bread and but­ter, af­ter the Amer­ican fash­ion.

The bev­er­age was de­clared exquisite, and was due to the in­fu­sion of the choic­est leaves, of which the em­per­or of Rus­sia had giv­en some chests for the ben­efit of the trav­el­ers.

And last­ly, to crown the repast, Ar­dan had brought out a fine bot­tle of Nu­its, which was found “by chance” in the pro­vi­sion-​box. The three friends drank to the union of the earth and her satel­lite.

And, as if he had not al­ready done enough for the gen­er­ous wine which he had dis­tilled on the slopes of Bur­gundy, the sun chose to be part of the par­ty. At this mo­ment the pro­jec­tile emerged from the con­ical shad­ow cast by the ter­res­tri­al globe, and the rays of the ra­di­ant orb struck the low­er disc of the pro­jec­tile di­rect oc­ca­sioned by the an­gle which the moon’s or­bit makes with that of the earth.

“The sun!” ex­claimed Michel Ar­dan.

“No doubt,” replied Bar­bi­cane; “I ex­pect­ed it.”

“But,” said Michel, “the con­ical shad­ow which the earth leaves in space ex­tends be­yond the moon?”

“Far be­yond it, if the at­mo­spher­ic re­frac­tion is not tak­en in­to con­sid­er­ation,” said Bar­bi­cane. “But when the moon is en­veloped in this shad­ow, it is be­cause the cen­ters of the three stars, the sun, the earth, and the moon, are all in one and the same straight line. Then the _nodes_ co­in­cide with the _phas­es_ of the moon, and there is an eclipse. If we had start­ed when there was an eclipse of the moon, all our pas­sage would have been in the shad­ow, which would have been a pity.”

“Why?”

“Be­cause, though we are float­ing in space, our pro­jec­tile, bathed in the so­lar rays, will re­ceive light and heat. It econ­omizes the gas, which is in ev­ery re­spect a good econ­omy.”

In­deed, un­der these rays which no at­mo­sphere can tem­per, ei­ther in tem­per­ature or bril­lian­cy, the pro­jec­tile grew warm and bright, as if it had passed sud­den­ly from win­ter to sum­mer. The moon above, the sun be­neath, were in­un­dat­ing it with their fire.

“It is pleas­ant here,” said Nicholl.

“I should think so,” said Michel Ar­dan. “With a lit­tle earth spread on our alu­minum plan­et we should have green peas in twen­ty-​four hours. I have but one fear, which is that the walls of the pro­jec­tile might melt.”

“Calm your­self, my wor­thy friend,” replied Bar­bi­cane; “the pro­jec­tile with­stood a very much high­er tem­per­ature than this as it slid through the stra­ta of the at­mo­sphere. I should not be sur­prised if it did not look like a me­te­or on fire to the eyes of the spec­ta­tors in Flori­da.”

“But then J. T. Mas­ton will think we are roast­ed!”

“What as­ton­ish­es me,” said Bar­bi­cane, “is that we have not been. That was a dan­ger we had not pro­vid­ed for.”

“I feared it,” said Nicholl sim­ply.

“And you nev­er men­tioned it, my sub­lime cap­tain,” ex­claimed Michel Ar­dan, clasp­ing his friend’s hand.

Bar­bi­cane now be­gan to set­tle him­self in the pro­jec­tile as if he was nev­er to leave it. One must re­mem­ber that this aeri­al car had a base with a _su­per­fi­cies_ of fifty-​four square feet. Its height to the roof was twelve feet. Care­ful­ly laid out in the in­side, and lit­tle en­cum­bered by in­stru­ments and trav­el­ing uten­sils, which each had their par­tic­ular place, it left the three trav­el­ers a cer­tain free­dom of move­ment. The thick win­dow in­sert­ed in the bot­tom could bear any amount of weight, and Bar­bi­cane and his com­pan­ions walked up­on it as if it were sol­id plank; but the sun strik­ing it di­rect­ly with its rays lit the in­te­ri­or of the pro­jec­tile from be­neath, thus pro­duc­ing sin­gu­lar ef­fects of light.

They be­gan by in­ves­ti­gat­ing the state of their store of wa­ter and pro­vi­sions, nei­ther of which had suf­fered, thanks to the care tak­en to dead­en the shock. Their pro­vi­sions were abun­dant, and plen­ti­ful enough to last the three trav­el­ers for more than a year. Bar­bi­cane wished to be cau­tious, in case the pro­jec­tile should land on a part of the moon which was ut­ter­ly bar­ren. As to wa­ter and the re­serve of brandy, which con­sist­ed of fifty gal­lons, there was on­ly enough for two months; but ac­cord­ing to the last ob­ser­va­tions of as­tronomers, the moon had a low, dense, and thick at­mo­sphere, at least in the deep val­leys, and there springs and streams could not fail. Thus, dur­ing their pas­sage, and for the first year of their set­tle­ment on the lu­nar con­ti­nent, these ad­ven­tur­ous ex­plor­ers would suf­fer nei­ther hunger nor thirst.

Now about the air in the pro­jec­tile. There, too, they were se­cure. Reiset and Reg­naut’s ap­pa­ra­tus, in­tend­ed for the pro­duc­tion of oxy­gen, was sup­plied with chlo­rate of potas­si­um for two months. They nec­es­sar­ily con­sumed a cer­tain quan­ti­ty of gas, for they were obliged to keep the pro­duc­ing sub­stance at a tem­per­ature of above 400@. But there again they were all safe. The ap­pa­ra­tus on­ly want­ed a lit­tle care. But it was not enough to re­new the oxy­gen; they must ab­sorb the car­bon­ic acid pro­duced by ex­pi­ra­tion. Dur­ing the last twelve hours the at­mo­sphere of the pro­jec­tile had be­come charged with this dele­te­ri­ous gas. Nicholl dis­cov­ered the state of the air by ob­serv­ing Di­ana pant­ing painful­ly. The car­bon­ic acid, by a phe­nomenon sim­ilar to that pro­duced in the fa­mous Grot­to del Cane, had col­lect­ed at the bot­tom of the pro­jec­tile ow­ing to its weight. Poor Di­ana, with her head low, would suf­fer be­fore her mas­ters from the pres­ence of this gas. But Cap­tain Nicholl has­tened to rem­edy this state of things, by plac­ing on the floor sev­er­al re­ceivers con­tain­ing caus­tic potash, which he shook about for a time, and this sub­stance, greedy of car­bon­ic acid, soon com­plete­ly ab­sorbed it, thus pu­ri­fy­ing the air.

An in­ven­to­ry of in­stru­ments was then be­gun. The ther­mome­ters and barom­eters had re­sist­ed, all but one min­imum ther­mome­ter, the glass of which was bro­ken. An ex­cel­lent aneroid was drawn from the wadded box which con­tained it and hung on the wall. Of course it was on­ly af­fect­ed by and marked the pres­sure of the air in­side the pro­jec­tile, but it al­so showed the quan­ti­ty of mois­ture which it con­tained. At that mo­ment its nee­dle os­cil­lat­ed be­tween 25.24 and 25.08.

It was fine weath­er.

Bar­bi­cane had al­so brought sev­er­al com­pass­es, which he found in­tact. One must un­der­stand that un­der present con­di­tions their nee­dles were act­ing _wild­ly_, that is with­out any _con­stant_ di­rec­tion. In­deed, at the dis­tance they were from the earth, the mag­net­ic pole could have no per­cep­ti­ble ac­tion up­on the ap­pa­ra­tus; but the box placed on the lu­nar disc might per­haps ex­hib­it some strange phe­nom­ena. In any case it would be in­ter­est­ing to see whether the earth’s satel­lite sub­mit­ted like her­self to its mag­net­ic in­flu­ence.

A hyp­some­ter to mea­sure the height of the lu­nar moun­tains, a sex­tant to take the height of the sun, glass­es which would be use­ful as they neared the moon, all these in­stru­ments were care­ful­ly looked over, and pro­nounced good in spite of the vi­olent shock.

As to the pick­ax­es and dif­fer­ent tools which were Nicholl’s es­pe­cial choice; as to the sacks of dif­fer­ent kinds of grain and shrubs which Michel Ar­dan hoped to trans­plant in­to Se­len­ite ground, they were stowed away in the up­per part of the pro­jec­tile. There was a sort of gra­nary there, load­ed with things which the ex­trav­agant French­man had heaped up. What they were no one knew, and the good-​tem­pered fel­low did not ex­plain. Now and then he climbed up by cramp-​irons riv­et­ed to the walls, but kept the in­spec­tion to him­self. He ar­ranged and re­ar­ranged, he plunged his hand rapid­ly in­to cer­tain mys­te­ri­ous box­es, singing in one of the falsest of voic­es an old French re­frain to en­liv­en the sit­ua­tion.

Bar­bi­cane ob­served with some in­ter­est that his guns and oth­er arms had not been dam­aged. These were im­por­tant, be­cause, heav­ily load­ed, they were to help lessen the fall of the pro­jec­tile, when drawn by the lu­nar at­trac­tion (af­ter hav­ing passed the point of neu­tral at­trac­tion) on to the moon’s sur­face; a fall which ought to be six times less rapid than it would have been on the earth’s sur­face, thanks to the dif­fer­ence of bulk. The in­spec­tion end­ed with gen­er­al sat­is­fac­tion, when each re­turned to watch space through the side win­dows and the low­er glass cov­er­lid.

There was the same view. The whole ex­tent of the ce­les­tial sphere swarmed with stars and con­stel­la­tions of won­der­ful pu­ri­ty, enough to drive an as­tronomer out of his mind! On one side the sun, like the mouth of a light­ed oven, a daz­zling disc with­out a ha­lo, stand­ing out on the dark back­ground of the sky! On the oth­er, the moon re­turn­ing its fire by re­flec­tion, and ap­par­ent­ly mo­tion­less in the midst of the star­ry world. Then, a large spot seem­ing­ly nailed to the fir­ma­ment, bor­dered by a sil­very cord; it was the earth! Here and there neb­ulous mass­es like large flakes of star­ry snow; and from the zenith to the nadir, an im­mense ring formed by an im­pal­pa­ble dust of stars, the “Milky Way,” in the midst of which the sun ranks on­ly as a star of the fourth mag­ni­tude. The ob­servers could not take their eyes from this nov­el spec­ta­cle, of which no de­scrip­tion could give an ad­equate idea. What re­flec­tions it sug­gest­ed! What emo­tions hith­er­to un­known awoke in their souls! Bar­bi­cane wished to be­gin the re­la­tion of his jour­ney while un­der its first im­pres­sions, and hour af­ter hour took notes of all facts hap­pen­ing in the be­gin­ning of the en­ter­prise. He wrote qui­et­ly, with his large square writ­ing, in a busi­ness-​like style.

Dur­ing this time Nicholl, the cal­cu­la­tor, looked over the min­utes of their pas­sage, and worked out fig­ures with un­par­al­leled dex­ter­ity. Michel Ar­dan chat­ted first with Bar­bi­cane, who did not an­swer him, and then with Nicholl, who did not hear him, with Di­ana, who un­der­stood none of his the­ories, and last­ly with him­self, ques­tion­ing and an­swer­ing, go­ing and com­ing, busy with a thou­sand de­tails; at one time bent over the low­er glass, at an­oth­er roost­ing in the heights of the pro­jec­tile, and al­ways singing. In this mi­cro­cosm he rep­re­sent­ed French lo­quaci­ty and ex­citabil­ity, and we beg you to be­lieve that they were well rep­re­sent­ed. The day, or rather (for the ex­pres­sion is not cor­rect) the lapse of twelve hours, which forms a day up­on the earth, closed with a plen­ti­ful sup­per care­ful­ly pre­pared. No ac­ci­dent of any na­ture had yet hap­pened to shake the trav­el­ers’ con­fi­dence; so, full of hope, al­ready sure of suc­cess, they slept peace­ful­ly, while the pro­jec­tile un­der an uni­form­ly de­creas­ing speed was cross­ing the sky.