Jules Verne - All Around the Moon

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"I do," was the reply.

"Of course, you do! What is it that he don't know? Eh, Captain?"

"It is a simple bolide, but one of such enormous dimensions that the
Earth's attraction has made it a satellite."

"What!" cried Ardan, "another satellite besides the Moon? I hope there
are no more of them!"

"They are pretty numerous," replied Barbican; "but they are so small and
they move with such enormous velocity that they are very seldom seen.
Petit, the Director of the Observatory of Toulouse, who these last years
has devoted much time and care to the observation of bolides, has
calculated that the very one we have just encountered moves with such
astonishing swiftness that it accomplishes its revolution around the
Earth in about 3 hours and 20 minutes!"

"Whew!" whistled Ardan, "where should we be now if it had struck us!"

"You don't mean to say, Barbican," observed M'Nicholl, "that Petit has
seen this very one?"

"So it appears," replied Barbican.

"And do all astronomers admit its existence?" asked the Captain.

"Well, some of them have their doubts," replied Barbican--

"If the unbelievers had been here a minute or two ago," interrupted
Ardan, "they would never express a doubt again."

"If Petit's calculation is right," continued Barbican, "I can even form
a very good idea as to our distance from the Earth."

"It seems to me Barbican can do what he pleases here or elsewhere,"
observed Ardan to the Captain.

"Let us see, Barbican," asked M'Nicholl; "where has Petit's calculation
placed us?"

"The bolide's distance being known," replied Barbican, "at the moment we
met it we were a little more than 5 thousand miles from the Earth's
surface."

"Five thousand miles already!" cried Ardan, "why we have only just
started!"

"Let us see about that," quietly observed the Captain, looking at his
chronometer, and calculating with his pencil. "It is now 10 minutes past
eleven; we have therefore been 23 minutes on the road. Supposing our
initial velocity of 10,000 yards or nearly seven miles a second, to have
been kept up, we should by this time be about 9,000 miles from the
Earth; but by allowing for friction and gravity, we can hardly be more
than 5,500 miles. Yes, friend Barbican, Petit does not seem to be very
wrong in his calculations."

But Barbican hardly heard the observation. He had not yet answered the
puzzling question that had already presented itself to them for
solution; and until he had done so he could not attend to anything else.

"That's all very well and good, Captain," he replied in an absorbed
manner, "but we have not yet been able to account for a very strange
phenomenon. Why didn't we hear the report?"

No one replying, the conversation came to a stand-still, and Barbican,
still absorbed in his reflections, began clearing the second light of
its external shutter. In a few minutes the plate dropped, and the Moon
beams, flowing in, filled the interior of the Projectile with her
brilliant light. The Captain immediately put out the gas, from motives
of economy as well as because its glare somewhat interfered with the
observation of the interplanetary regions.

The Lunar disc struck the travellers as glittering with a splendor and
purity of light that they had never witnessed before. The beams, no
longer strained through the misty atmosphere of the Earth, streamed
copiously in through the glass and coated the interior walls of the
Projectile with a brilliant silvery plating. The intense blackness of
the sky enhanced the dazzling radiance of the Moon. Even the stars
blazed with a new and unequalled splendor, and, in the absence of a
refracting atmosphere, they flamed as bright in the close proximity of
the Moon as in any other part of the sky.

You can easily conceive the interest with which these bold travellers
gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She
was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which
she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but
her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came
out a particle more sharply than if they had been viewed from the Earth.
Still, her light, unobstructed by air or vapor, shimmered with a lustre
actually transplendent. Her disc shone like a mirror of polished
platins. The travellers remained for some time absorbed in the silent
contemplation of the glorious scene.

"How they're gazing at her this very moment from Stony Hill!" said the
Captain at last to break the silence.

"By Jove!" cried Ardan; "It's true! Captain you're right. We were near
forgetting our dear old Mother, the Earth. What ungrateful children! Let
me feast my eyes once more on the blessed old creature!"

Barbican, to satisfy his companion's desire, immediately commenced to
clear away the disc which covered the floor of the Projectile and
prevented them from getting at the lower light. This disc, though it had
been dashed to the bottom of the Projectile with great violence, was
still as strong as ever, and, being made in compartments fastened by
screws, to dismount it was no easy matter. Barbican, however, with the
help of the others, soon had it all taken apart, and put away the pieces
carefully, to serve again in case of need. A round hole about a foot and
a half in diameter appeared, bored through the floor of the Projectile.
It was closed by a circular pane of plate-glass, which was about six
inches thick, fastened by a ring of copper. Below, on the outside, the
glass was protected by an aluminium plate, kept in its place by strong
bolts and nuts. The latter being unscrewed, the bolts slipped out by
their own weight, the shutter fell, and a new communication was
established between the interior and the exterior.

Ardan knelt down, applied his eye to the light, and tried to look out.
At first everything was quite dark and gloomy.

"I see no Earth!" he exclaimed at last.

"Don't you see a fine ribbon of light?" asked Barbican, "right beneath
us? A thin, pale, silvery crescent?"

"Of course I do. Can that be the Earth?"

"_Terra Mater_ herself, friend Ardan. That fine fillet of light, now
hardly visible on her eastern border, will disappear altogether as soon
as the Moon is full. Then, lying as she will be between the Sun and the
Moon, her illuminated face will be turned away from us altogether, and
for several days she will be involved in impenetrable darkness."

"And that's the Earth!" repeated Ardan, hardly able to believe his eyes,
as he continued to gaze on the slight thread of silvery white light,
somewhat resembling the appearance of the "Young May Moon" a few hours
after sunset.

Barbican's explanation was quite correct. The Earth, in reference to the
Moon or the Projectile, was in her last phase, or octant as it is
called, and showed a sharp-horned, attenuated, but brilliant crescent
strongly relieved by the black background of the sky. Its light,
rendered a little bluish by the density of the atmospheric envelopes,
was not quite as brilliant as the Moon's. But the Earth's crescent,
compared to the Lunar, was of dimensions much greater, being fully 4
times larger. You would have called it a vast, beautiful, but very thin
bow extending over the sky. A few points, brighter than the rest,
particularly in its concave part, revealed the presence of lofty
mountains, probably the Himalayahs. But they disappeared every now and
then under thick vapory spots, which are never seen on the Lunar disc.
They were the thin concentric cloud rings that surround the terrestrial
sphere.

However, the travellers' eyes were soon able to trace the rest of the
Earth's surface not only with facility, but even to follow its outline
with absolute delight. This was in consequence of two different
phenomena, one of which they could easily account for; but the other
they could not explain without Barbican's assistance. No wonder. Never
before had mortal eye beheld such a sight. Let us take each in its turn.

We all know that the ashy light by means of which we perceive what is
called the _Old Moon in the Young Moon's arms_ is due to the
Earth-shine, or the reflection of the solar rays from the Earth to the
Moon. By a phenomenon exactly identical, the travellers could now see
that portion of the Earth's surface which was unillumined by the Sun;
only, as, in consequence of the different areas of the respective
surfaces, the _Earthlight_ is thirteen times more intense than the
_Moonlight_, the dark portion of the Earth's disc appeared considerably
more adumbrated than the _Old Moon_.

But the other phenomenon had burst on them so suddenly that they
uttered a cry loud enough to wake up Barbican from his problem. They had
discovered a true starry ring! Around the Earth's outline, a ring, of
internally well defined thickness, but somewhat hazy on the outside,
could easily be traced by its surpassing brilliancy. Neither the
_Pleiades_, the _Northern Crown_, the _Magellanic Clouds_ nor the great
nebulas of _Orion_, or of _Argo_, no sparkling cluster, no corona, no
group of glittering star-dust that the travellers had ever gazed at,
presented such attractions as the diamond ring they now saw encompassing
the Earth, just as the brass meridian encompasses a terrestrial globe.
The resplendency of its light enchanted them, its pure softness
delighted them, its perfect regularity astonished them. What was it?
they asked Barbican. In a few words he explained it. The beautiful
luminous ring was simply an optical illusion, produced by the refraction
of the terrestrial atmosphere. All the stars in the neighborhood of the
Earth, and many actually behind it, had their rays refracted, diffused,
radiated, and finally converged to a focus by the atmosphere, as if by a
double convex lens of gigantic power.

Whilst the travellers were profoundly absorbed in the contemplation of
this wondrous sight, a sparkling shower of shooting stars suddenly
flashed over the Earth's dark surface, making it for a moment as bright
as the external ring. Hundreds of bolides, catching fire from contact
with the atmosphere, streaked the darkness with their luminous trails,
overspreading it occasionally with sheets of electric flame. The Earth
was just then in her perihelion, and we all know that the months of
November and December are so highly favorable to the appearance of these
meteoric showers that at the famous display of November, 1866,
astronomers counted as many as 8,000 between midnight and four o'clock.

Barbican explained the whole matter in a few words. The Earth, when
nearest to the sun, occasionally plunges into a group of countless
meteors travelling like comets, in eccentric orbits around the grand
centre of our solar system. The atmosphere strikes the rapidly moving
bodies with such violence as to set them on fire and render them visible
to us in beautiful star showers. But to this simple explanation of the
famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing
that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still
looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best
rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never
let them out of her watchful eye.

For hours they continued to gaze with indescribable interest on the
faintly luminous mass so easily distinguishable among the other heavenly
bodies. Jupiter blazed on their right, Mars flashed his ruddy light on
their left, Saturn with his rings looked like a round white spot on a
black wall; even Venus they could see almost directly under them, easily
recognizing her by her soft, sweetly scintillant light. But no planet or
constellation possessed any attraction for the travellers, as long as
their eyes could trace that shadowy, crescent-edged, diamond-girdled,
meteor-furrowed spheroid, the theatre of their existence, the home of so
many undying desires, the mysterious cradle of their race!

Meantime the Projectile cleaved its way upwards, rapidly, unswervingly,
though with a gradually retarding velocity. As the Earth sensibly grew
darker, and the travellers' eyes grew dimmer, an irresistible somnolency
slowly stole over their weary frames. The extraordinary excitement they
had gone through during the last four or five hours, was naturally
followed by a profound reaction.

"Captain, you're nodding," said Ardan at last, after a longer silence
than usual; "the fact is, Barbican is the only wake man of the party,
because he is puzzling over his problem. _Dum vivimus vivamus_! As we
are asleep let us be asleep!"

So saying he threw himself on the mattress, and his companions
immediately followed the example.

They had been lying hardly a quarter of an hour, when Barbican started
up with a cry so loud and sudden as instantly to awaken his companions.

The bright moonlight showed them the President sitting up in his bed,
his eye blazing, his arms waving, as he shouted in a tone reminding them
of the day they had found him in St. Helena wood.

"_Eureka!_ I've got it! I know it!"

"What have you got?" cried Ardan, bouncing up and seizing him by the
right hand.

"What do you know?" cried the Captain, stretching over and seizing him
by the left.

"The reason why we did not hear the report!"

"Well, why did not we hear it!" asked both rapidly in the same breath.

"Because we were shot up 30 times faster than sound can travel!"

CHAPTER III.

THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE.

This curious explanation given, and its soundness immediately
recognized, the three friends were soon fast wrapped in the arms of
Morpheus. Where in fact could they have found a spot more favorable for
undisturbed repose? On land, where the dwellings, whether in populous
city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills
the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or
screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air,
where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of
the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally
threatening to spill you out? The Projectile alone, floating grandly
through the absolute void, in the midst of the profoundest silence,
could offer to its inmates the possibility of enjoying slumber the most
complete, repose the most profound.

There is no telling how long our three daring travellers would have
continued to enjoy their sleep, if it had not been suddenly terminated
by an unexpected noise about seven o'clock in the morning of December
2nd, eight hours after their departure.

This noise was most decidedly of barking.

"The dogs! It's the dogs!" cried Ardan, springing up at a bound.

"They must be hungry!" observed the Captain.

"We have forgotten the poor creatures!" cried Barbican.

"Where can they have gone to?" asked Ardan, looking for them in all
directions.

At last they found one of them hiding under the sofa. Thunderstruck and
perfectly bewildered by the terrible shock, the poor animal had kept
close in its hiding place, never daring to utter a sound, until at last
the pangs of hunger had proved too strong even for its fright.

They readily recognized the amiable Diana, but they could not allure the
shivering, whining animal from her retreat without a good deal of
coaxing. Ardan talked to her in his most honeyed and seductive accents,
while trying to pull her out by the neck.

"Come out to your friends, charming Diana," he went on, "come out, my
beauty, destined for a lofty niche in the temple of canine glory! Come
out, worthy scion of a race deemed worthy by the Egyptians to be a
companion of the great god, Anubis, by the Christians, to be a friend of
the good Saint Roch! Come out and partake of a glory before which the
stars of Montargis and of St. Bernard shall henceforward pale their
ineffectual fire! Come out, my lady, and let me think o'er the countless
multiplication of thy species, so that, while sailing through the
interplanetary spaces, we may indulge in endless flights of fancy on
the number and variety of thy descendants who will ere long render the
Selenitic atmosphere vocal with canine ululation!"

[Illustration: MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER.]

Diana, whether flattered or not, allowed herself to be dragged out,
still uttering short, plaintive whines. A hasty examination satisfying
her friends that she was more frightened than hurt and more hungry than
either, they continued their search for her companion.

"Satellite! Satellite! Step this way, sir!" cried Ardan. But no
Satellite appeared and, what was worse, not the slightest sound indicated
his presence. At last he was discovered on a ledge in the upper portion
of the Projectile, whither he had been shot by the terrible concussion.
Less fortunate than his female companion, the poor fellow had received a
frightful shock and his life was evidently in great danger.

"The acclimatization project looks shaky!" cried Ardan, handing the
animal very carefully and tenderly to the others. Poor Satellite's head
had been crushed against the roof, but, though recovery seemed hopeless,
they laid the body on a soft cushion, and soon had the satisfaction of
hearing it give vent to a slight sigh.

"Good!" said Ardan, "while there's life there's hope. You must not die
yet, old boy. We shall nurse you. We know our duty and shall not shirk
the responsibility. I should rather lose the right arm off my body than
be the cause of your death, poor Satellite! Try a little water?"

The suffering creature swallowed the cool draught with evident avidity,
then sunk into a deep slumber.

The friends, sitting around and having nothing more to do, looked out of
the window and began once more to watch the Earth and the Moon with
great attention. The glittering crescent of the Earth was evidently
narrower than it had been the preceding evening, but its volume was
still enormous when compared to the Lunar crescent, which was now
rapidly assuming the proportions of a perfect circle.

"By Jove," suddenly exclaimed Ardan, "why didn't we start at the moment
of Full Earth?--that is when our globe and the Sun were in opposition?"

"Why _should_ we!" growled M'Nicholl.

"Because in that case we should be now looking at the great continents
and the great seas in a new light--the former glittering under the solar
rays, the latter darker and somewhat shaded, as we see them on certain
maps. How I should like to get a glimpse at those poles of the Earth, on
which the eye of man has never yet lighted!"

"True," replied Barbican, "but if the Earth had been Full, the Moon
would have been New, that is to say, invisible to us on account of solar
irradiation. Of the two it is much preferable to be able to keep the
point of arrival in view rather than the point of departure."

"You're right, Barbican," observed the Captain; "besides, once we're in
the Moon, the long Lunar night will give us plenty of time to gaze our
full at yonder great celestial body, our former home, and still
swarming with our fellow beings."

"Our fellow beings no longer, dear boy!" cried Ardan. "We inhabit a new
world peopled by ourselves alone, the Projectile! Ardan is Barbican's
fellow being, and Barbican M'Nicholl's. Beyond us, outside us, humanity
ends, and we are now the only inhabitants of this microcosm, and so we
shall continue till the moment when we become Selenites pure and
simple."

"Which shall be in about eighty-eight hours from now," replied the
Captain.

"Which is as much as to say--?" asked Ardan.

"That it is half past eight," replied M'Nicholl.

"My regular hour for breakfast," exclaimed Ardan, "and I don't see the
shadow of a reason for changing it now."

The proposition was most acceptable, especially to the Captain, who
frequently boasted that, whether on land or water, on mountain summits
or in the depths of mines, he had never missed a meal in all his life.
In escaping from the Earth, our travellers felt that they had by no
means escaped from the laws of humanity, and their stomachs now called
on them lustily to fill the aching void. Ardan, as a Frenchman, claimed
the post of chief cook, an important office, but his companions yielded
it with alacrity. The gas furnished the requisite heat, and the
provision chest supplied the materials for their first repast. They
commenced with three plates of excellent soup, extracted from _Liebig's_
precious tablets, prepared from the best beef that ever roamed over the
Pampas.

To this succeeded several tenderloin beefsteaks, which, though reduced
to a small bulk by the hydraulic engines of the _American Dessicating
Company_, were pronounced to be fully as tender, juicy and savory as if
they had just left the gridiron of a London Club House. Ardan even swore
that they were "bleeding," and the others were too busy to contradict
him.

Preserved vegetables of various kinds, "fresher than nature," according
to Ardan, gave an agreeable variety to the entertainment, and these were
followed by several cups of magnificent tea, unanimously allowed to be
the best they had ever tasted. It was an odoriferous young hyson
gathered that very year, and presented to the Emperor of Russia by the
famous rebel chief Yakub Kushbegi, and of which Alexander had expressed
himself as very happy in being able to send a few boxes to his friend,
the distinguished President of the Baltimore Gun Club. To crown the
meal, Ardan unearthed an exquisite bottle of _Chambertin_, and, in
glasses sparkling with the richest juice of the _Cote d'or,_ the
travellers drank to the speedy union of the Earth and her satellite.

And, as if his work among the generous vineyards of Burgundy had not
been enough to show his interest in the matter, even the Sun wished to
join the party. Precisely at this moment, the Projectile beginning to
leave the conical shadow cast by the Earth, the rays of the glorious
King of Day struck its lower surface, not obliquely, but
perpendicularly, on account of the slight obliquity of the Moon's orbit
with that of the Earth.

[Illustration: TO THE UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE.]

"The Sun," cried Ardan.

"Of course," said Barbican, looking at his watch, "he's exactly up to
time."

"How is it that we see him only through the bottom light of our
Projectile?" asked Ardan.

"A moment's reflection must tell you," replied Barbican, "that when we
started last night, the Sun was almost directly below us; therefore, as
we continue to move in a straight line, he must still be in our rear."

"That's clear enough," said the Captain, "but another consideration, I'm
free to say, rather perplexes me. Since our Earth lies between us and
the Sun, why don't we see the sunlight forming a great ring around the
globe, in other words, instead of the full Sun that we plainly see there
below, why do we not witness an annular eclipse?"

"Your cool, clear head has not yet quite recovered from the shock, my
dear Captain;" replied Barbican, with a smile. "For two reasons we can't
see the ring eclipse: on account of the angle the Moon's orbit makes
with the Earth, the three bodies are not at present in a direct line;
we, therefore, see the Sun a little to the west of the earth; secondly,
even if they were exactly in a straight line, we should still be far
from the point whence an annular eclipse would be visible."

"That's true," said Ardan; "the cone of the Earth's shadow must extend
far beyond the Moon."

"Nearly four times as far," said Barbican; "still, as the Moon's orbit
and the Earth's do not lie in exactly the same plane, a Lunar eclipse
can occur only when the nodes coincide with the period of the Full Moon,
which is generally twice, never more than three times in a year. If we
had started about four days before the occurrence of a Lunar eclipse, we
should travel all the time in the dark. This would have been obnoxious
for many reasons."

"One, for instance?"

"An evident one is that, though at the present moment we are moving
through a vacuum, our Projectile, steeped in the solar rays, revels in
their light and heat. Hence great saving in gas, an important point in
our household economy."

In effect, the solar rays, tempered by no genial medium like our
atmosphere, soon began to glare and glow with such intensity, that the
Projectile under their influence, felt like suddenly passing from winter
to summer. Between the Moon overhead and the Sun beneath it was actually
inundated with fiery rays.

"One feels good here," cried the Captain, rubbing his hands.

"A little too good," cried Ardan. "It's already like a hot-house. With a
little garden clay, I could raise you a splendid crop of peas in
twenty-four hours. I hope in heaven the walls of our Projectile won't
melt like wax!"

"Don't be alarmed, dear friend," observed Barbican, quietly. "The
Projectile has seen the worst as far as heat is concerned; when tearing
through the atmosphere, she endured a temperature with which what she is
liable to at present stands no comparison. In fact, I should not be
astonished if, in the eyes of our friends at Stony Hill, it had
resembled for a moment or two a red-hot meteor."

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