Jules Verne - All Around the Moon

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Towards three o'clock every preparation was made, every possible
precaution taken, and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do
than watch and wait.

The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon. It had by this time
turned over considerably under the influence of attraction, but its own
original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction. The
consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent, line
approaching the edge of the Moon's disc. One thing was certain: the
Projectile had not yet commenced to fall directly towards her surface;
its base, in which its centre of gravity lay, was still turned away
considerably from the perpendicular.

Barbican's countenance soon showed perplexity and even alarm. His
Projectile was proving intractable to the laws of gravitation. The
_unknown_ was opening out dimly before him, the great boundless unknown
of the starry plains. In his pride and confidence as a scientist, he had
flattered himself with having sounded the consequence of every possible
hypothesis regarding the Projectile's ultimate fate: the return to the
Earth; the arrival at the Moon; and the motionless dead stop at the
neutral point. But here, a new and incomprehensible fourth hypothesis,
big with the terrors of the mystic infinite, rose up before his
disturbed mind, like a grim and hollow ghost. After a few seconds,
however, he looked at it straight in the face without wincing. His
companions showed themselves just as firm. Whether it was science that
emboldened Barbican, his phlegmatic stoicism that propped up the
Captain, or his enthusiastic vivacity that cheered the irrepressible
Ardan, I cannot exactly say. But certainly they were all soon talking
over the matter as calmly as you or I would discuss the advisability of
taking a sail on the lake some beautiful evening in July.

Their first remarks were decidedly peculiar and quite characteristic.
Other men would have asked themselves where the Projectile was taking
them to. Do you think such a question ever occurred to them? Not a bit
of it. They simply began asking each other what could have been the
cause of this new and strange state of things.

"Off the track, it appears," observed Ardan. "How's that?"

"My opinion is," answered the Captain, "that the Projectile was not
aimed true. Every possible precaution had been taken, I am well aware,
but we all know that an inch, a line, even the tenth part of a hair's
breadth wrong at the start would have sent us thousands of miles off our
course by this time."

"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked Ardan.

"I don't think there was any error at the start," was the confident
reply; "not even so much as a line! We took too many tests proving the
absolute perpendicularity of the Columbiad, to entertain the slightest
doubt on that subject. Its direction towards the zenith being
incontestable, I don't see why we should not reach the Moon when she
comes to the zenith."

"Perhaps we're behind time," suggested Ardan.

"What have you to say to that, Barbican?" asked the Captain. "You know
the Cambridge men said the journey had to be done in 97 hours 13 minutes
and 20 seconds. That's as much as to say that if we're not up to time we
shall miss the Moon."

"Correct," said Barbican. "But we _can't_ be behind time. We started,
you know, on December 1st, at 13 minutes and 20 seconds before 11
o'clock, and we were to arrive four days later at midnight precisely.
To-day is December 5th Gentlemen, please examine your watches. It is now
half past three in the afternoon. Eight hours and a half are sufficient
to take us to our journey's end. Why should we not arrive there?"

"How about being ahead of time?" asked the Captain.

"Just so!" said Ardan. "You know we have discovered the initial velocity
to have been greater than was expected."

"Not at all! not at all!" cried Barbican "A slight excess of velocity
would have done no harm whatever had the direction of the Projectile
been perfectly true. No. There must have been a digression. We must have
been switched off!"

"Switched off? By what?" asked both his listeners in one breath.

"I can't tell," said Barbican curtly.

"Well!" said Ardan; "if Barbican can't tell, there is an end to all
further talk on the subject. We're switched off--that's enough for me.
What has done it? I don't care. Where are we going to? I don't care.
What is the use of pestering our brains about it? We shall soon find
out. We are floating around in space, and we shall end by hauling up
somewhere or other."

But in this indifference Barbican was far from participating. Not that
he was not prepared to meet the future with a bold and manly heart. It
was his inability to answer his own question that rendered him uneasy.
What _had_ switched them off? He would have given worlds for an answer,
but his brain sorely puzzled sought one in vain.

In the mean time, the Projectile continued to turn its side rather than
its base towards the Moon; that is, to assume a lateral rather than a
direct movement, and this movement was fully participated in by the
multitude of the objects that had been thrown outside. Barbican could
even convince himself by sighting several points on the lunar surface,
by this time hardly more than fifteen or eighteen thousand miles
distant, that the velocity of the Projectile instead of accelerating was
becoming more and more uniform. This was another proof that there was
no perpendicular fall. However, though the original impulsive force was
still superior to the Moon's attraction, the travellers were evidently
approaching the lunar disc, and there was every reason to hope that they
would at last reach a point where, the lunar attraction at last having
the best of it, a decided fall should be the result.

The three friends, it need hardly be said, continued to make their
observations with redoubled interest, if redoubled interest were
possible. But with all their care they could as yet determine nothing
regarding the topographical details of our radiant satellite. Her
surface still reflected the solar rays too dazzlingly to show the relief
necessary for satisfactory observation.

Our travellers kept steadily on the watch looking out of the side
lights, till eight o'clock in the evening, by which time the Moon had
grown so large in their eyes that she covered up fully half the sky. At
this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light,
reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the
Moon's splendor on the other.

Barbican now took a careful observation and calculated that they could
not be much more than 2,000 miles from the object of their journey. The
velocity of the Projectile he calculated to be about 650 feet per second
or 450 miles an hour. They had therefore still plenty of time to reach
the Moon in about four hours. But though the bottom of the Projectile
continued to turn towards the lunar surface in obedience to the law of
centripetal force, the centrifugal force was still evidently strong
enough to change the path which it followed into some kind of curve, the
exact nature of which would be exceedingly difficult to calculate.

The careful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however
prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem. What _had_
switched them off? The hours passed on, but brought no result. That the
adventurers were approaching the Moon was evident, but it was just as
evident that they should never reach her. The nearest point the
Projectile could ever possibly attain would only be the result of two
opposite forces, the attractive and the repulsive, which, as was now
clear, influenced its motion. Therefore, to land in the Moon was an
utter impossibility, and any such idea was to be given up at once and
for ever.

"_Quand meme_! What of it!" cried Ardan; after some moments' silence.
"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best
thing--pass close enough to discover her secrets!"

But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary,
he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even
phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud
enough to reach Barbican's ear. At last, impatient of further restraint,
he burst out:

"Who the deuce cares for her secrets? To the hangman with her secrets!
We started to land in the Moon! That's what's got to be done! That I
want or nothing! Confound the darned thing, I say, whatever it was,
whether on the Earth or off it, that shoved us off the track!"

"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly;
"now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met
the first night of our journey!"

"Hey?" cried Ardan.

"What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl.

"I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a
tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that
wandering meteor."

"Why, it did not even graze us!" cried Ardan.

"No matter for that," replied Barbican. "Its mass, compared to ours, was
enormous, and its attraction was undoubtedly sufficiently great to
influence our deviation."

"Hardly enough to be appreciable," urged M'Nicholl.

"Right again, Captain," observed Barbican. "But just remember an
observation of your own made this very afternoon: an inch, a line, even
the tenth part of a hair's breadth wrong at the beginning, in a journey
of 240 thousand miles, would be sufficient to make us miss the Moon!"

CHAPTER X.

THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.

Barbican's happy conjecture had probably hit the nail on the head. The
divergency even of a second may amount to millions of miles if you only
have your lines long enough. The Projectile had certainly gone off its
direct course; whatever the cause, the fact was undoubted. It was a
great pity. The daring attempt must end in a failure due altogether to a
fortuitous accident, against which no human foresight could have
possibly taken precaution. Unless in case of the occurrence of some
other most improbable accident, reaching the Moon was evidently now
impossible. To failure, therefore, our travellers had to make up their
minds.

But was nothing to be gained by the trip? Though missing actual contact
with the Moon, might they not pass near enough to solve several problems
in physics and geology over which scientists had been for a long time
puzzling their brains in vain? Even this would be some compensation for
all their trouble, courage, and intelligence. As to what was to be their
own fate, to what doom were themselves to be reserved--they never
appeared to think of such a thing. They knew very well that in the midst
of those infinite solitudes they should soon find themselves without
air. The slight supply that kept them from smothering could not
possibly last more than five or six days longer. Five or six days! What
of that? _Quand meme_! as Ardan often exclaimed. Five or six days were
centuries to our bold adventurers! At present every second was a year in
events, and infinitely too precious to be squandered away in mere
preparations for possible contingencies. The Moon could never be
reached, but was it not possible that her surface could be carefully
observed? This they set themselves at once to find out.

The distance now separating them from our Satellite they estimated at
about 400 miles. Therefore relatively to their power of discovering the
details of her disc, they were still farther off from the Moon than some
of our modern astronomers are to-day, when provided with their powerful
telescopes.

We know, for example, that Lord Rosse's great telescope at Parsonstown,
possessing a power of magnifying 6000 times, brings the Moon to within
40 miles of us; not to speak of Barbican's great telescope on the summit
of Long's Peak, by which the Moon, magnified 48,000 times, was brought
within 5 miles of the Earth, where it therefore could reveal with
sufficient distinctness every object above 40 feet in diameter.

Therefore our adventurers, though at such a comparatively small
distance, could not make out the topographical details of the Moon with
any satisfaction by their unaided vision. The eye indeed could easily
enough catch the rugged outline of these vast depressions improperly
called "Seas," but it could do very little more. Its powers of
adjustability seemed to fail before the strange and bewildering scene.
The prominence of the mountains vanished, not only through the
foreshortening, but also in the dazzling radiation produced by the
direct reflection of the solar rays. After a short time therefore,
completely foiled by the blinding glare, the eye turned itself
unwillingly away, as if from a furnace of molten silver.

The spherical surface, however, had long since begun to reveal its
convexity. The Moon was gradually assuming the appearance of a gigantic
egg with the smaller end turned towards the Earth. In the earlier days
of her formation, while still in a state of mobility, she had been
probably a perfect sphere in shape, but, under the influence of
terrestrial gravity operating for uncounted ages, she was drawn at last
so much towards the centre of attraction as to resemble somewhat a
prolate spheriod. By becoming a satellite, she had lost the native
perfect regularity of her outline; her centre of gravity had shifted
from her real centre; and as a result of this arrangement, some
scientists have drawn the conclusion that the Moon's air and water have
been attracted to that portion of her surface which is always invisible
to the inhabitants of the Earth.

The convexity of her outline, this bulging prominence of her surface,
however, did not last long. The travellers were getting too near to
notice it. They were beginning to survey the Moon as balloonists survey
the Earth. The Projectile was now moving with great rapidity--with
nothing like its initial velocity, but still eight or nine times faster
than an express train. Its line of movement, however, being oblique
instead of direct, was so deceptive as to induce Ardan to flatter
himself that they might still reach the lunar surface. He could never
persuade himself to believe that they should get so near their aim and
still miss it. No; nothing might, could, would or should induce him to
believe it, he repeated again and again. But Barbican's pitiless logic
left him no reply.

"No, dear friend, no. We can reach the Moon only by a fall, and we don't
fall. Centripetal force keeps us at least for a while under the lunar
influence, but centrifugal force drives us away irresistibly."

These words were uttered in a tone that killed Ardan's last and fondest
hope.

* * * * *

The portion of the Moon they were now approaching was her northern
hemisphere, found usually in the lower part of lunar maps. The lens of a
telescope, as is well known, gives only the inverted image of the
object; therefore, when an upright image is required, an additional
glass must be used. But as every additional glass is an additional
obstruction to the light, the object glass of a Lunar telescope is
employed without a corrector; light is thereby saved, and in viewing the
Moon, as in viewing a map, it evidently makes very little difference
whether we see her inverted or not. Maps of the Moon therefore, being
drawn from the image formed by the telescope, show the north in the
lower part, and _vice versa_. Of this kind was the _Mappa
Selenographica_, by Beer and Maedler, so often previously alluded to and
now carefully consulted by Barbican. The northern hemisphere, towards
which they were now rapidly approaching, presented a strong contrast
with the southern, by its vast plains and great depressions, checkered
here and there by very remarkable isolated mountains.[A]

At midnight the Moon was full. This was the precise moment at which the
travellers would have landed had not that unlucky bolide drawn them off
the track. The Moon was therefore strictly up to time, arriving at the
instant rigidly determined by the Cambridge Observatory. She occupied
the exact point, to a mathematical nicety, where our 28th parallel
crossed the perigee. An observer posted in the bottom of the Columbiad
at Stony Hill, would have found himself at this moment precisely under
the Moon. The axis of the enormous gun, continued upwards vertically,
would have struck the orb of night exactly in her centre.

It is hardly necessary to tell our readers that, during this memorable
night of the 5th and 6th of December, the travellers had no desire to
close their eyes. Could they do so, even if they had desired? No! All
their faculties, thoughts, and desires, were concentrated in one single
word: "Look!" Representatives of the Earth, and of all humanity past and
present, they felt that it was with their eyes that the race of man
contemplated the lunar regions and penetrated the secrets of our
satellite! A certain indescribable emotion therefore, combined with an
undefined sense of responsibility, held possession of their hearts, as
they moved silently from window to window.

Their observations, recorded by Barbican, were vigorously remade,
revised, and re-determined, by the others. To make them, they had
telescopes which they now began to employ with great advantage. To
regulate and investigate them, they had the best maps of the day.

Whilst occupied in this silent work, they could not help throwing a
short retrospective glance on the former Observers of the Moon.

The first of these was Galileo. His slight telescope magnified only
thirty times, still, in the spots flecking the lunar surface, like the
eyes checkering a peacock's tail, he was the first to discover mountains
and even to measure their heights. These, considering the difficulties
under which he labored, were wonderfully accurate, but unfortunately he
made no map embodying his observations.

A few years afterwards, Hevel of Dantzic, (1611-1688) a Polish
astronomer--more generally known as Hevelius, his works being all
written in Latin--undertook to correct Galileo's measurements. But as
his method could be strictly accurate only twice a month--the periods of
the first and second quadratures--his rectifications could be hardly
called successful.

Still it is to the labors of this eminent astronomer, carried on
uninterruptedly for fifty years in his own observatory, that we owe the
first map of the Moon. It was published in 1647 under the name of
_Selenographia_. He represented the circular mountains by open spots
somewhat round in shape, and by shaded figures he indicated the vast
plains, or, as he called them, the _seas_, that occupied so much of her
surface. These he designated by names taken from our Earth. His map
shows you a _Mount Sinai_ the midst of an _Arabia_, an _AEtna_ in the
centre of a _Sicily_, _Alps_, _Apennines_, _Carpathians_, a
_Mediterranean_, a _Palus Maeolis_, a _Pontus Euxinus_, and a _Caspian
Sea_. But these names seem to have been given capriciously and at
random, for they never recall any resemblance existing between
themselves and their namesakes on our globe. In the wide open spot, for
instance, connected on the south with vast continents and terminating in
a point, it would be no easy matter to recognize the reversed image of
the _Indian Peninsula_, the _Bay of Bengal_, and _Cochin China_.
Naturally, therefore, these names were nearly all soon dropped; but
another system of nomenclature, proposed by an astronomer better
acquainted with the human heart, met with a success that has lasted to
the present day.

This was Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, and (1598-1671) a contemporary of
Hevelius. In his _Astronomia Reformata_, (1665), he published a rough
and incorrect map of the Moon, compiled from observations made by
Grimaldi of Ferrara; but in designating the mountains, he named them
after eminent astronomers, and this idea of his has been carefully
carried out by map makers of later times.

A third map of the Moon was published at Rome in 1666 by Dominico
Cassini of Nice (1625-1712), the famous discoverer of Saturn's
satellites. Though somewhat incorrect regarding measurements, it was
superior to Riccioli's in execution, and for a long time it was
considered a standard work. Copies of this map are still to be found,
but Cassini's original copper-plate, preserved for a long time at the
_Imprimerie Royale_ in Paris, was at last sold to a brazier, by no less
a personage than the Director of the establishment himself, who,
according to Arago, wanted to get rid of what he considered useless
lumber!

La Hire (1640-1718), professor of astronomy in the _College de France_,
and an accomplished draughtsman, drew a map of the Moon which was
thirteen feet in diameter. This map could be seen long afterwards in the
library of St. Genevieve, Paris, but it was never engraved.

About 1760, Mayer, a famous German astronomer and the director of the
observatory of Goettingen, began the publication of a magnificent map of
the Moon, drawn after lunar measurements all rigorously verified by
himself. Unfortunately his death in 1762 interrupted a work which would
have surpassed in accuracy every previous effort of the kind.

Next appears Schroeter of Erfurt (1745-1816), a fine observer (he first
discovered the Lunar _Rills_), but a poor draughtsman: his maps are
therefore of little value. Lohrman of Dresden published in 1838 an
excellent map of the Moon, 15 inches in diameter, accompanied by
descriptive text and several charts of particular portions on a larger
scale.

But this and all other maps were thrown completely into the shade by
Beer and Maedler's famous _Mappa Selenographica_, so often alluded to in
the course of this work. This map, projected orthographically--that is,
one in which all the rays proceeding from the surface to the eye are
supposed to be parallel to each other--gives a reproduction of the lunar
disc exactly as it appears. The representation of the mountains and
plains is therefore correct only in the central portion; elsewhere,
north, south, east, or west, the features, being foreshortened, are
crowded together, and cannot be compared in measurement with those in
the centre. It is more than three feet square; for convenient reference
it is divided into four parts, each having a very full index; in short,
this map is in all respects a master piece of lunar cartography.[B]

After Beer and Maedler, we should allude to Julius Schmitt's (of Athens)
excellent selenographic reliefs: to Doctor Draper's, and to Father
Secchi's successful application of photography to lunar representation;
to De La Rue's (of London) magnificent stereographs of the Moon, to be
had at every optician's; to the clear and correct map prepared by
Lecouturier and Chapuis in 1860; to the many beautiful pictures of the
Moon in various phases of illumination obtained by the Messrs. Bond of
Harvard University; to Rutherford's (of New York) unparalleled lunar
photographs; and finally to Nasmyth and Carpenter's wonderful work on
the Moon, illustrated by photographs of her surface in detail, prepared
from models at which they had been laboring for more than a quarter of
the century.

Of all these maps, pictures, and projections, Barbican had provided
himself with only two--Beer and Maedler's in German, and Lecouturier and
Chapuis' in French. These he considered quite sufficient for all
purposes, and certainly they considerably simplified his labors as an
observer.

His best optical instruments were several excellent marine telescopes,
manufactured especially under his direction. Magnifying the object a
hundred times, on the surface of the Earth they would have brought the
Moon to within a distance of somewhat less than 2400 miles. But at the
point to which our travellers had arrived towards three o'clock in the
morning, and which could hardly be more than 12 or 1300 miles from the
Moon, these telescopes, ranging through a medium disturbed by no
atmosphere, easily brought the lunar surface to within less than 13
miles' distance from the eyes of our adventurers.

Therefore they should now see objects in the Moon as clearly as people
can see the opposite bank of a river that is about 12 miles wide.

[Footnote A: In our Map of the Moon, prepared expressly for this work,
we have so far improved on Beer and Maedler as to give her surface as it
appears to the naked eye: that is, the north is in the north; only we
must always remember that the west is and must be on the _right hand_.]

[Footnote B: In our Map the _Mappa Selenographica_ is copied as closely
and as fully as is necessary for understanding the details of the story.
For further information the reader is referred to Nasmyth's late
magnificent work: the MOON.]

CHAPTER XI.

FACT AND FANCY.

"Have you ever seen the Moon?" said a teacher ironically one day in
class to one of his pupils.

"No, sir;" was the pert reply; "but I think I can safely say I've heard
it spoken about."

Though saying what he considered a smart thing, the pupil was probably
perfectly right. Like the immense majority of his fellow beings, he had
looked at the Moon, heard her talked of, written poetry about her, but,
in the strict sense of the term, he had probably never seen her--that
is--scanned her, examined her, surveyed her, inspected her, reconnoitred
her--even with an opera glass! Not one in a thousand, not one in ten
thousand, has ever examined even the map of our only Satellite. To guard
our beloved and intelligent reader against this reproach, we have
prepared an excellent reduction of Beer and Maedler's _Mappa_, on which,
for the better understanding of what is to follow, we hope he will
occasionally cast a gracious eye.

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