Lost on the Moon, Roy Rockwood [best reads of all time .txt] 📗

to most astronomers, there

is absolutely no air on the moon, also no moisture, and the temperature

is either very high or around the freezing point. We must find out what

it is.”

 

“How can we?” inquired Mark.

 

“I’ll soon show you,” went on the German. “Professor Henderson, will

you kindly assist me.”

 

When it had been decided to come to the moon in quest for the field of

diamonds, certain changes had been made in the Annihilator to fit it

for new conditions that might be met. One of these consisted of an

aperture in the two sides of the projectile permitting certain delicate

instruments to be thrust out, so that the conditions they indicated

could be read on dials or graduated scales from within.

 

“We will first make a test of the temperature,” said Mr. Roumann, “as

that will be the easiest.” Accordingly a thermometer was put outside,

and those in the air-craft anxiously watched the red column of spirits.

The temperature was marked as seventy-five inside the Annihilator,

but the thermometer had not been outside more than a second before

it began falling.

 

“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson, as he noted it. “The temperature is

going down. I’d rather have it too cold than too hot. We can stand a

minus fifty of cold better than two hundred and twelve of heat. We have

fur garments with us.”

 

“It is still going down,” remarked Jack, as he saw the red column drop

down past the thirty mark.

 

“Below freezing,” added Mark.

 

The spirits fell in the tube until they touched twenty-eight degrees,

and there they remained.

 

“Twenty-eight degrees,” remarked Professor Henderson. “That isn’t so

bad. At least, we can stand that if we are warmly clad.”

 

“Yes, but it will be colder tonight,” said Jack. For they had landed

on the moon in bright sunlight.

 

“Tonight?” questioned the German scientist, with a smile.

 

“Yes, it’s always colder when the sun goes down,” went on the lad.

 

“You have forgotten one thing,” said Mr. Henderson, with a smile at his

young prot�g�. “You must remember, Jack, that the nights and days here

are each fourteen days long—that is, fourteen of our days.”

 

“How’s that?” asked Jack.

 

“Why,” broke in Mark, who was a trifle better student than was his

chum, “don’t you remember that the moon rotates on its axis once a

month, or in about twenty-eight days, to be exact, and so half of that

time is day and half night, just as on our earth, when it revolves on

its axis in twenty-four hours, half the time is day and half the time

is night.”

 

“Sure, I ought to have remembered,” declared Jack.

 

“Mark is right,” added Mr. Henderson. “And, as we have most fortunately

arrived on the moon at the beginning of the long day, we will have

fourteen days of sunshine, during which we may expect the temperature

to remain at about twenty-eight degrees. But now about the atmosphere.”

“We will test that directly,” went on the German. “It will take some

time longer, though.”

 

Various instruments were brought forth and thrust out of the opening in

the side of the projectile, which opening was so arranged that it was

closed hermetically while the instruments were put forth. Then the

readings of the dials or scales were taken, and computations made. In

fact, some of what corresponded to the moon’s atmosphere was secured in

a hollow steel cup and brought inside the Annihilator for analysis.

 

“Well,” remarked Professor Roumann, as he bent over a test tube, the

contents of which he had put through several processes, “I am afraid we

cannot breathe on the moon.”

 

“Can’t breathe on it?” gasped Jack. “Then we can’t go out and walk

around it.”

 

“I didn’t say that,” resumed the German, with a smile. “I said we

couldn’t breathe the moon’s atmosphere. In fact there is nothing there

that we would call atmosphere. There is absolutely no oxygen, and there

are a number of poisonous gases that would instantly cause death if

inhaled.”

 

“Then how are we to get out and hunt for those diamonds, Professor?”

went on Jack. “Gee whiz! if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come. This

is tough luck!”

 

“Maybe the professor can suggest a way out of the difficulty, boys,”

spoke Mr. Henderson. “It certainly would be too bad if, after our

perilous trip, we couldn’t get out of our cage and walk around the

moon.”

 

“I think perhaps I can discover a way so that it will be safe to

venture forth,” said Mr. Roumann. “But I must first conduct some

further experiments. In the meanwhile suppose you boys get out some

fur-lined garments, for, though it is only twenty-eight degrees, we

will need to be well clad after the time spent inside this warm

projectile.”

 

“It does look as if he expected to get us out,” remarked Jack, as he

and his chum went to where Andy Sudds was.

 

“Yes, you’ll get a chance to pick up diamonds after all, Jack. That is,

if there are any here.”

 

“Of course there are diamonds. You wait and see,” and then, with the

help of the old hunter, they took from the store-room their fur

garments.

 

It was half an hour before the warm clothes were sorted out, and then

the boys went back to where the two professors were.

 

“Well,” asked Jack cautiously, “can we go outside?”

 

“I think so,” answered the German cheerfully. “But you must always be

careful to carry one of these with you,” and he handed to each of the

boys a steel rod about two feet long, at the end of which was a small

iron box, with perforations in the sides and top.

 

“What is this?” asked Jack. “It looks like a magician’s wand.”

 

“And that is exactly what it is,” said Mr. Henderson. “As there is no

atmosphere fit to breathe on the moon, we have been forced to make our

own, boys. You each hold what may be called torches of life. To venture

out without them would mean instant death by suffocation or poison.”

 

“And will these save our lives?” asked Mark.

 

“Yes,” said Mr. Roumann. “In the iron boxes on those rods are certain

chemicals, rich in oxygen and other elements, which, when brought in

contact with the gases on the moon, will dispel a cloud of air about

whoever carries them—air such as we find on our earth. So, boys, be

careful never to venture out without the torches of life. I had them

prepared in anticipation of some such emergency as this, and all that

was necessary was to put in the chemicals. This I have done, and now,

if you wish, you may go out and stroll about the moon.”