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

CHAPTER VIII

AT SEV­EN­TY-​EIGHT THOU­SAND FIVE HUN­DRED AND FOUR­TEEN LEAGUES

What had hap­pened? Whence the cause of this sin­gu­lar in­tox­ica­tion, the con­se­quences of which might have been very dis­as­trous? A sim­ple blun­der of Michel’s, which, for­tu­nate­ly, Nicholl was able to cor­rect in time.

Af­ter a per­fect swoon, which last­ed some min­utes, the cap­tain, re­cov­er­ing first, soon col­lect­ed his scat­tered sens­es. Al­though he had break­fast­ed on­ly two hours be­fore, he felt a gnaw­ing hunger, as if he had not eat­en any­thing for sev­er­al days. Ev­ery­thing about him, stom­ach and brain, were overex­cit­ed to the high­est de­gree. He got up and de­mand­ed from Michel a sup­ple­men­tary repast. Michel, ut­ter­ly done up, did not an­swer.

Nicholl then tried to pre­pare some tea des­tined to help the ab­sorp­tion of a dozen sand­wich­es. He first tried to get some fire, and struck a match sharply. What was his sur­prise to see the sul­phur shine with so ex­traor­di­nary a bril­lian­cy as to be al­most un­bear­able to the eye. From the gas-​burn­er which he lit rose a flame equal to a jet of elec­tric light.

A rev­ela­tion dawned on Nicholl’s mind. That in­ten­si­ty of light, the phys­io­log­ical trou­bles which had arisen in him, the overex­cite­ment of all his moral and quar­rel­some fac­ul­ties– he un­der­stood all.

“The oxy­gen!” he ex­claimed.

And lean­ing over the air ap­pa­ra­tus, he saw that the tap was al­low­ing the col­or­less gas to es­cape freely, life-​giv­ing, but in its pure state pro­duc­ing the gravest dis­or­ders in the sys­tem. Michel had blun­der­ing­ly opened the tap of the ap­pa­ra­tus to the full.

Nicholl has­tened to stop the es­cape of oxy­gen with which the at­mo­sphere was sat­urat­ed, which would have been the death of the trav­el­ers, not by suf­fo­ca­tion, but by com­bus­tion. An hour lat­er, the air less charged with it re­stored the lungs to their nor­mal con­di­tion. By de­grees the three friends re­cov­ered from their in­tox­ica­tion; but they were obliged to sleep them­selves sober over their oxy­gen as a drunk­ard does over his wine.

When Michel learned his share of the re­spon­si­bil­ity of this in­ci­dent, he was not much dis­con­cert­ed. This un­ex­pect­ed drunk­en­ness broke the monotony of the jour­ney. Many fool­ish things had been said while un­der its in­flu­ence, but al­so quick­ly for­got­ten.

“And then,” added the mer­ry French­man, “I am not sor­ry to have tast­ed a lit­tle of this heady gas. Do you know, my friends, that a cu­ri­ous es­tab­lish­ment might be found­ed with rooms of oxy­gen, where peo­ple whose sys­tem is weak­ened could for a few hours live a more ac­tive life. Fan­cy par­ties where the room was sat­urat­ed with this hero­ic flu­id, the­aters where it should be kept at high pres­sure; what pas­sion in the souls of the ac­tors and spec­ta­tors! what fire, what en­thu­si­asm! And if, in­stead of an as­sem­bly on­ly a whole peo­ple could be sat­urat­ed, what ac­tiv­ity in its func­tions, what a sup­ple­ment to life it would de­rive. From an ex­haust­ed na­tion they might make a great and strong one, and I know more than one state in old Eu­rope which ought to put it­self un­der the regime of oxy­gen for the sake of its health!”

Michel spoke with so much an­ima­tion that one might have fan­cied that the tap was still too open. But a few words from Bar­bi­cane soon shat­tered his en­thu­si­asm.

“That is all very well, friend Michel,” said he, “but will you in­form us where these chick­ens came from which have mixed them­selves up in our con­cert?”

“Those chick­ens?”

“Yes.”

In­deed, half a dozen chick­ens and a fine cock were walk­ing about, flap­ping their wings and chat­ter­ing.

“Ah, the awk­ward things!” ex­claimed Michel. “The oxy­gen has made them re­volt.”

“But what do you want to do with these chick­ens?” asked Bar­bi­cane.

“To ac­cli­ma­tize them in the moon, by Jove!”

“Then why did you hide them?”

“A joke, my wor­thy pres­ident, a sim­ple joke, which has proved a mis­er­able fail­ure. I want­ed to set them free on the lu­nar con­ti­nent, with­out say­ing any­thing. Oh, what would have been your amaze­ment on see­ing these earth­ly-​winged an­imals peck­ing in your lu­nar fields!”

“You ras­cal, you un­mit­igat­ed ras­cal,” replied Bar­bi­cane, “you do not want oxy­gen to mount to the head. You are al­ways what we were un­der the in­flu­ence of the gas; you are al­ways fool­ish!”

“Ah, who says that we were not wise then?” replied Michel Ar­dan.

Af­ter this philo­soph­ical re­flec­tion, the three friends set about restor­ing the or­der of the pro­jec­tile. Chick­ens and cock were re­in­stat­ed in their coop. But while pro­ceed­ing with this op­er­ation, Bar­bi­cane and his two com­pan­ions had a most de­sired per­cep­tion of a new phe­nomenon. From the mo­ment of leav­ing the earth, their own weight, that of the pro­jec­tile, and the ob­jects it en­closed, had been sub­ject to an in­creas­ing diminu­tion. If they could not prove this loss of the pro­jec­tile, a mo­ment would ar­rive when it would be sen­si­bly felt up­on them­selves and the uten­sils and in­stru­ments they used.

It is need­less to say that a scale would not show this loss; for the weight des­tined to weight the ob­ject would have lost ex­act­ly as much as the ob­ject it­self; but a spring steel­yard for ex­am­ple, the ten­sion of which was in­de­pen­dent of the at­trac­tion, would have giv­en a just es­ti­mate of this loss.

We know that the at­trac­tion, oth­er­wise called the weight, is in pro­por­tion to the den­si­ties of the bod­ies, and in­verse­ly as the squares of the dis­tances. Hence this ef­fect: If the earth had been alone in space, if the oth­er ce­les­tial bod­ies had been sud­den­ly an­ni­hi­lat­ed, the pro­jec­tile, ac­cord­ing to New­ton’s laws, would weigh less as it got far­ther from the earth, but with­out ev­er los­ing its weight en­tire­ly, for the ter­res­tri­al at­trac­tion would al­ways have made it­self felt, at what­ev­er dis­tance.

But, in re­al­ity, a time must come when the pro­jec­tile would no longer be sub­ject to the law of weight, af­ter al­low­ing for the oth­er ce­les­tial bod­ies whose ef­fect could not be set down as ze­ro. In­deed, the pro­jec­tile’s course was be­ing traced be­tween the earth and the moon. As it dis­tanced the earth, the ter­res­tri­al at­trac­tion di­min­ished: but the lu­nar at­trac­tion rose in pro­por­tion. There must come a point where these two at­trac­tions would neu­tral­ize each oth­er: the pro­jec­tile would pos­sess weight no longer. If the moon’s and the earth’s den­si­ties had been equal, this point would have been at an equal dis­tance be­tween the two orbs. But tak­ing the dif­fer­ent den­si­ties in­to con­sid­er­ation, it was easy to reck­on that this point would be sit­uat­ed at 47/60ths of the whole jour­ney, _i.e._, at 78,514 leagues from the earth. At this point, a body hav­ing no prin­ci­ple of speed or dis­place­ment in it­self, would re­main im­mov­able for­ev­er, be­ing at­tract­ed equal­ly by both orbs, and not be­ing drawn more to­ward one than to­ward the oth­er.

Now if the pro­jec­tile’s im­pul­sive force had been cor­rect­ly cal­cu­lat­ed, it would at­tain this point with­out speed, hav­ing lost all trace of weight, as well as all the ob­jects with­in it. What would hap­pen then? Three hy­pothe­ses pre­sent­ed them­selves.

1. Ei­ther it would re­tain a cer­tain amount of mo­tion, and pass the point of equal at­trac­tion, and fall up­on the moon by virtue of the ex­cess of the lu­nar at­trac­tion over the ter­res­tri­al.

2. Or, its speed fail­ing, and un­able to reach the point of equal at­trac­tion, it would fall up­on the moon by virtue of the ex­cess of the lu­nar at­trac­tion over the ter­res­tri­al.

3. Or, last­ly, an­imat­ed with suf­fi­cient speed to en­able it to reach the neu­tral point, but not suf­fi­cient to pass it, it would re­main for­ev­er sus­pend­ed in that spot like the pre­tend­ed tomb of Ma­homet, be­tween the zenith and the nadir.

Such was their sit­ua­tion; and Bar­bi­cane clear­ly ex­plained the con­se­quences to his trav­el­ing com­pan­ions, which great­ly in­ter­est­ed them. But how should they know when the pro­jec­tile had reached this neu­tral point sit­uat­ed at that dis­tance, es­pe­cial­ly when nei­ther them­selves, nor the ob­jects en­closed in the pro­jec­tile, would be any longer sub­ject to the laws of weight?

Up to this time, the trav­el­ers, while ad­mit­ting that this ac­tion was con­stant­ly de­creas­ing, had not yet be­come sen­si­ble to its to­tal ab­sence.

But that day, about eleven o’clock in the morn­ing, Nicholl hav­ing ac­ci­den­tal­ly let a glass slip from his hand, the glass, in­stead of falling, re­mained sus­pend­ed in the air.

“Ah!” ex­claimed Michel Ar­dan, “that is rather an amus­ing piece of nat­ural phi­los­ophy.”

And im­me­di­ate­ly divers oth­er ob­jects, firearms and bot­tles, aban­doned to them­selves, held them­selves up as by en­chant­ment. Di­ana too, placed in space by Michel, re­pro­duced, but with­out any trick, the won­der­ful sus­pen­sion prac­ticed by Cas­ton and Robert Houdin. In­deed the dog did not seem to know that she was float­ing in air.

The three ad­ven­tur­ous com­pan­ions were sur­prised and stu­pe­fied, de­spite their sci­en­tif­ic rea­son­ings. They felt them­selves be­ing car­ried in­to the do­main of won­ders! they felt that weight was re­al­ly want­ing to their bod­ies. If they stretched out their arms, they did not at­tempt to fall. Their heads shook on their shoul­ders. Their feet no longer clung to the floor of the pro­jec­tile. They were like drunk­en men hav­ing no sta­bil­ity in them­selves.

Fan­cy has de­pict­ed men with­out re­flec­tion, oth­ers with­out shad­ow. But here re­al­ity, by the neu­tral­iza­tions of at­trac­tive forces, pro­duced men in whom noth­ing had any weight, and who weighed noth­ing them­selves.

Sud­den­ly Michel, tak­ing a spring, left the floor and re­mained sus­pend­ed in the air, like Muril­lo’s monk of the _Cu­sine des Anges_.

The two friends joined him in­stant­ly, and all three formed a mirac­ulous “As­cen­sion” in the cen­ter of the pro­jec­tile.

“Is it to be be­lieved? is it prob­able? is it pos­si­ble?” ex­claimed Michel; “and yet it is so. Ah! if Raphael had seen us thus, what an `As­sump­tion’ he would have thrown up­on can­vas!”

“The `As­sump­tion’ can­not last,” replied Bar­bi­cane. “If the pro­jec­tile pass­es the neu­tral point, the lu­nar at­trac­tion will draw us to the moon.”

“Then our feet will be up­on the roof,” replied Michel.

“No,” said Bar­bi­cane, “be­cause the pro­jec­tile’s cen­ter of grav­ity is very low; it will on­ly turn by de­grees.”

“Then all our porta­bles will be up­set from top to bot­tom, that is a fact.”

“Calm your­self, Michel,” replied Nicholl; “no up­set is to be feared; not a thing will move, for the pro­jec­tile’s evo­lu­tion will be im­per­cep­ti­ble.”

“Just so,” con­tin­ued Bar­bi­cane; “and when it has passed the point of equal at­trac­tion, its base, be­ing the heav­ier, will draw it per­pen­dic­ular­ly to the moon; but, in or­der that this phe­nomenon should take place, we must have passed the neu­tral line.”

“Pass the neu­tral line,” cried Michel; “then let us do as the sailors do when they cross the equa­tor.”

A slight side move­ment brought Michel back to­ward the padded side; thence he took a bot­tle and glass­es, placed them “in space” be­fore his com­pan­ions, and, drink­ing mer­ri­ly, they salut­ed the line with a triple hur­rah. The in­flu­ence of these at­trac­tions scarce­ly last­ed an hour; the trav­el­ers felt them­selves in­sen­si­bly drawn to­ward the floor, and Bar­bi­cane fan­cied that the con­ical end of the pro­jec­tile was vary­ing a lit­tle from its nor­mal di­rec­tion to­ward the moon. By an in­verse mo­tion the base was ap­proach­ing first; the lu­nar at­trac­tion was pre­vail­ing over the ter­res­tri­al; the fall to­ward the moon was be­gin­ning, al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly as yet, but by de­grees the at­trac­tive force would be­come stronger, the fall would be more de­cid­ed, the pro­jec­tile, drawn by its base, would turn its cone to the earth, and fall with ev­er-​in­creas­ing speed on to the sur­face of the Se­len­ite con­ti­nent; their des­ti­na­tion would then be at­tained. Now noth­ing could pre­vent the suc­cess of their en­ter­prise, and Nicholl and Michel Ar­dan shared Bar­bi­cane’s joy.

Then they chat­ted of all the phe­nom­ena which had as­ton­ished them one af­ter the oth­er, par­tic­ular­ly the neu­tral­iza­tion of the laws of weight. Michel Ar­dan, al­ways en­thu­si­as­tic, drew con­clu­sions which were pure­ly fan­ci­ful.

“Ah, my wor­thy friends,” he ex­claimed, “what progress we should make if on earth we could throw off some of that weight, some of that chain which binds us to her; it would be the pris­on­er set at lib­er­ty; no more fa­tigue of ei­ther arms or legs. Or, if it is true that in or­der to fly on the earth’s sur­face, to keep one­self sus­pend­ed in the air mere­ly by the play of the mus­cles, there re­quires a strength a hun­dred and fifty times greater than that which we pos­sess, a sim­ple act of vo­li­tion, a caprice, would bear us in­to space, if at­trac­tion did not ex­ist.”

“Just so,” said Nicholl, smil­ing; “if we could suc­ceed in sup­press­ing weight as they sup­press pain by anaes­the­sia, that would change the face of mod­ern so­ci­ety!”

“Yes,” cried Michel, full of his sub­ject, “de­stroy weight, and no more bur­dens!”

“Well said,” replied Bar­bi­cane; “but if noth­ing had any weight, noth­ing would keep in its place, not even your hat on your head, wor­thy Michel; nor your house, whose stones on­ly ad­here by weight; nor a boat, whose sta­bil­ity on the waves is on­ly caused by weight; not even the ocean, whose waves would no longer be equal­ized by ter­res­tri­al at­trac­tion; and last­ly, not even the at­mo­sphere, whose atoms, be­ing no longer held in their places, would dis­perse in space!”

“That is tire­some,” re­tort­ed Michel; “noth­ing like these mat­ter-​of-​fact peo­ple for bring­ing one back to the bare re­al­ity.”

“But con­sole your­self, Michel,” con­tin­ued Bar­bi­cane, “for if no orb ex­ists from whence all laws of weight are ban­ished, you are at least go­ing to vis­it one where it is much less than on the earth.”

“The moon?”

“Yes, the moon, on whose sur­face ob­jects weigh six times less than on the earth, a phe­nomenon easy to prove.”

“And we shall feel it?” asked Michel.

“Ev­ident­ly, as two hun­dred pounds will on­ly weigh thir­ty pounds on the sur­face of the moon.”

“And our mus­cu­lar strength will not di­min­ish?”

“Not at all; in­stead of jump­ing one yard high, you will rise eigh­teen feet high.”

“But we shall be reg­ular Her­cule­ses in the moon!” ex­claimed Michel.

“Yes,” replied Nicholl; “for if the height of the Se­len­ites is in pro­por­tion to the den­si­ty of their globe, they will be scarce­ly a foot high.”

“Lil­liputians!” ejac­ulat­ed Michel; “I shall play the part of Gul­liv­er. We are go­ing to re­al­ize the fa­ble of the gi­ants. This is the ad­van­tage of leav­ing one’s own plan­et and over-​run­ning the so­lar world.”

“One mo­ment, Michel,” an­swered Bar­bi­cane; “if you wish to play the part of Gul­liv­er, on­ly vis­it the in­fe­ri­or plan­ets, such as Mer­cury, Venus, or Mars, whose den­si­ty is a lit­tle less than that of the earth; but do not ven­ture in­to the great plan­ets, Jupiter, Sat­urn, Uranus, Nep­tune; for there the or­der will be changed, and you will be­come Lil­liputian.”

“And in the sun?”

“In the sun, if its den­si­ty is thir­teen hun­dred and twen­ty-​four thou­sand times greater, and the at­trac­tion is twen­ty-​sev­en times greater than on the sur­face of our globe, keep­ing ev­ery­thing in pro­por­tion, the in­hab­itants ought to be at least two hun­dred feet high.”

“By Jove!” ex­claimed Michel; “I should be noth­ing more than a pigmy, a shrimp!”

“Gul­liv­er with the gi­ants,” said Nicholl.

“Just so,” replied Bar­bi­cane.

“And it would not be quite use­less to car­ry some pieces of ar­tillery to de­fend one­self.”

“Good,” replied Nicholl; “your pro­jec­tiles would have no ef­fect on the sun; they would fall back up­on the earth af­ter some min­utes.”

“That is a strong re­mark.”

“It is cer­tain,” replied Bar­bi­cane; “the at­trac­tion is so great on this enor­mous orb, that an ob­ject weigh­ing 70,000 pounds on the earth would weigh but 1,920 pounds on the sur­face of the sun. If you were to fall up­on it you would weigh– let me see– about 5,000 pounds, a weight which you would nev­er be able to raise again.”

“The dev­il!” said Michel; “one would want a portable crane. How­ev­er, we will be sat­is­fied with the moon for the present; there at least we shall cut a great fig­ure. We will see about the sun by and by.”