Round the Moon, Jules Verne [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

“Savants like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, and Newton?”

“I could swear it.”

“Clowns like Arnal, and photographers like⁠—Nadar?”

“I am certain of it.”

“Then, friend Barbicane, if these Selenites are as learned as we, and even more so, why have they not hurled a lunar projectile as far as the terrestrial regions?”

“Who says they have not done it?” answered Barbicane seriously.

“In fact,” added Nicholl, “it would have been easier to them than to us, and that for two reasons⁠—the first because the attraction is six times less on the surface of the moon than on the surface of the earth, which would allow a projectile to go up more easily; secondly the projectile would only have 8,000 leagues to travel instead of 80,000, which would require a force of propulsion ten times less.”

“Then,” resumed Michel, “I repeat⁠—why have they not done it?”

“And I,” replied Barbicane, “I repeat⁠—who says they have not done it?”

“When?”

“Hundreds of centuries ago, before man’s appearance upon earth.”

“And the bullet? Where is the bullet? I ask to see the bullet!”

“My friend,” answered Barbicane, “the sea covers five-sixths of our globe, hence there are five good reasons for supposing that the lunar projectile, if it has been fired, is now submerged at the bottom of the Atlantic or Pacific, unless it was buried down some abyss at the epoch when the earth’s crust was not sufficiently formed.”

“Old fellow,” answered Michel, “you have an answer to everything, and I bow before your wisdom. There is one hypothesis I would rather believe than the others, and that is that the Selenites being older than we are wiser, and have not invented gunpowder at all.”

At that moment Diana claimed her share in the conversation by a sonorous bark. She asked for her breakfast.

“Ah!” said Michel Ardan, “our arguments make us forget Diana and Satellite!”

A good dish of food was immediately offered to the dog, who devoured it with great appetite.

“Do you know, Barbicane,” said Michel, “we ought to have made this projectile a sort of Noah’s Ark, and have taken a couple of all the domestic animals with us to the moon.”

“No doubt,” answered Barbicane, “but we should not have had room enough.”

“Oh, we might have been packed a little tighter!”

“The fact is,” answered Nicholl, “that oxen, cows, bulls, and horses, all those ruminants would be useful on the lunar continent. Unfortunately we cannot make our projectile either a stable or a cowshed.”

“But at least,” said Michel Ardan, “we might have brought an ass, nothing but a little ass, the courageous and patient animal old Silenus loved to exhibit. I am fond of those poor asses! They are the least favoured animals in creation. They are not only beaten during their lifetime, but are still beaten after their death!”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Barbicane.

“Why, don’t they use his skin to make drums of?”

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this absurd reflection. But a cry from their merry companion stopped them; he was bending over Satellite’s niche, and rose up saying⁠—

“Good! Satellite is no longer ill.”

“Ah!” said Nicholl.

“No!” resumed Michel, “he is dead. Now,” he added in a pitiful tone, “this will be embarrassing! I very much fear, poor Diana, that you will not leave any of your race in the lunar regions!”

The unfortunate Satellite had not been able to survive his wounds. He was dead, stone dead. Michel Ardan, much put out of countenance, looked at his friends.

“This makes another difficulty,” said Barbicane. “We can’t keep the dead body of this dog with us for another eight-and-forty hours.”

“No, certainly not,” answered Nicholl, “but our port-lights are hung upon hinges. They can be let down. We will open one of them, and throw the body into space.”

The president reflected for a few minutes, and then said⁠—

“Yes, that is what we must do, but we must take the most minute precautions.”

“Why?” asked Michel.

“For two reasons that I will explain to you,” answered Barbicane. “The first has reference to the air in the projectile, of which we must lose as little as possible.”

“But we can renew the air!”

“Not entirely. We can only renew the oxygen, Michel; and, by the by, we must be careful that the apparatus do not furnish us with this oxygen in an immoderate quantity, for an excess of it would cause grave physiological consequences. But although we can renew the oxygen we cannot renew the azote, that medium which the lungs do not absorb, and which ought to remain intact. Now the azote would rapidly escape if the port-lights were opened.”

“Not just the time necessary to throw poor Satellite out.”

“Agreed; but we must do it quickly.”

“And what is the second reason?” asked Michel.

“The second reason is that we must not allow the exterior cold, which is excessive, to penetrate into our projectile lest we should be frozen alive.”

“Still the sun⁠—”

“The sun warms our projectile because it absorbs its rays, but it does not warm the void we are in now. When there is no air there is no more heat than there is diffused light, and where the sun’s rays do not reach directly it is both dark and cold. The temperature outside is only that produced by the radiation of the stars⁠—that is to say, the same as the temperature of the terrestrial globe would be if one day the sun were to be extinguished.”

“No fear of that,” answered Nicholl.

“Who knows?” said Michel Ardan. “And even supposing that the sun be not extinguished, it might happen that the earth will move farther away from it.”

“Good!” said Nicholl; “that’s one of Michel’s ideas!”

“Well,” resumed Michel, “it is well known that in 1861 the earth went through the tail of a comet. Now suppose there was a comet with a power of attraction greater than that of the sun, the terrestrial globe might make a curve towards the wandering star, and the earth would become its satellite, and would be dragged away to such a distance that the rays of the sun would have no action on its surface.”

“That