by Jules Verne
CHAPTER V.
THE COLD OF SPACE.
This revelation came like a thunderbolt. Who could have expected such anerror in calculation? Barbicane would not believe it. Nicholl revisedhis figures: they were exact. As to the formula which had determinedthem, they could not suspect its truth; it was evident that an initiatoryvelocity of 17,000 yards in the first second was necessary to enable themto reach the neutral point.
The three friends looked at each other silently. There was no thoughtof breakfast. Barbicane, with clenched teeth, knitted brows, and handsclasped convulsively, was watching through the window. Nicholl hadcrossed his arms, and was examining his calculations. Michel Ardan wasmuttering,--
"That is just like those scientific men: they never do anything else. Iwould give twenty pistoles if we could fall upon the Cambridge Observatoryand crush it, together with the whole lot of dabblers in figures whichit contains."
Suddenly a thought struck the captain, which he at once communicated toBarbicane.
"Ah!" said he; "it is seven o'clock in the morning; we have already beengone thirty-two hours; more than half our passage is over, and we arenot falling that I am aware of."
Barbicane did not answer, but after a rapid glance at the captain,took a pair of compasses wherewith to measure the angular distanceof the terrestrial globe; then from the lower window he took an exactobservation, and noticed that the projectile was apparently stationary.Then rising and wiping his forehead, on which large drops of perspirationwere standing, he put some figures on paper. Nicholl understood that thepresident was deducting from the terrestrial diameter the projectile'sdistance from the earth. He watched him anxiously.
"No," exclaimed Barbicane, after some moments, "no, we are not falling!no, we are already more than 50,000 leagues from the earth. We havepassed the point at which the projectile would have stopped if its speedhad only been 12,000 yards at starting. We are still going up."
"That is evident," replied Nicholl; "and we must conclude that ourinitial speed, under the power of the 400,000 lbs. of gun-cotton, musthave exceeded the required 12,000 yards. Now I can understand how, afterthirteen minutes only, we met the second satellite, which gravitatesround the earth at more than 2000 leagues' distance."
"And this explanation is the more probable," added Barbicane, "because,in throwing off the water enclosed between its partition-breaks, theprojectile found itself lightened of a considerable weight."
"Just so," said Nicholl.
"Ah, my brave Nicholl, we are saved!"
"Very well then," said Michel Ardan quietly; "as we are safe, let us havebreakfast."
Nicholl was not mistaken. The initial speed had been, very fortunately,much above that estimated by the Cambridge Observatory; but the CambridgeObservatory had nevertheless made a mistake.
The travellers, recovered from this false alarm, breakfasted merrily. Ifthey ate a great deal, they talked more. Their confidence was greaterafter than before "the incident of the algebra."
"Why should we not succeed?" said Michel Ardan; "why should we not arrivesafely? We are launched; we have no obstacle before us, no stones in ourway; the road is open, more so than that of a ship battling with the sea;more open than that of a balloon battling with the wind; and if a shipcan reach its destination, a balloon go where it pleases, why cannot ourprojectile attain its end and aim?"
"It _will_ attain it," said Barbicane.
"If only to do honour to the Americans," added Michel Ardan, "the onlypeople who could bring such an enterprise to a happy termination, andthe only one which could produce a President Barbicane. Ah, now we areno longer uneasy, I begin to think, What will become of us? We shall getright royally weary."
Barbicane and Nicholl made a gesture of denial.
"But I have provided for the contingency, my friends," replied Michel;"you have only to speak, and I have chess, draughts, cards, and dominoesat your disposal; nothing is wanting but a billiard-table."
"What!" exclaimed Barbicane; "you brought away such trifles?"
"Certainly," replied Michel, "and not only to distract ourselves, butalso with the laudable intention of endowing the Selenite smoking divanswith them."
"My friend," said Barbicane, "if the moon is inhabited, its inhabitantsmust have appeared some thousands of years before those of the earth, forwe cannot doubt that their star is much older than ours. If then theseSelenites have existed their hundreds of thousands of years, and if theirbrain is of the same organization as the human brain, they have alreadyinvented all that we have invented, and even what we may invent in futureages. They have nothing to learn from _us_, and we have everything tolearn from _them_."
"What!" said Michel; "you believe that they have artists like Phidias,Michael Angelo, or Raphael?"
"Yes."
"Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?"
"I am sure of it."
"Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant?"
"I have no doubt of it."
"Scientific men like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, Newton?"
"I could swear it."
"Comic writers like Arnal, and photographers like--like Nadar?"
"Certain."
"Then, friend Barbicane, if they are as strong as we are, and evenstronger--these Selenites--why have they not tried to communicatewith the earth? why have they not launched a lunar projectile to ourterrestrial regions?"
"Who told you that they have never done so?" said Barbicane seriously.
"Indeed," added Nicholl, "it would be easier for them than for us, fortwo reasons; first, because the attraction on the moon's surface is sixtimes less than on that of the earth, which would allow a projectile torise more easily; secondly, because it would be enough to send such aprojectile only at 8000 leagues instead of 80,000, which would requirethe force of projection to be ten times less strong."
"Then," continued Michel, "I repeat it, why have they not done it?"
"And I repeat," said Barbicane; "who told you that they have not doneit?"
"When?"
"Thousands of years before man appeared on earth."
"And the projectile--where is the projectile? I demand to see theprojectile."
"My friend," replied Barbicane, "the sea covers five-sixths of our globe.From that we may draw five good reasons for supposing that the lunarprojectile, if ever launched, is now at the bottom of the Atlantic orthe Pacific, unless it sped into some crevasse at that period when thecrust of the earth was not yet hardened."
"Old Barbicane," said Michel, "you have an answer for everything, and Ibow before your wisdom. But there is one hypothesis that would suit mebetter than all the others, which is, that the Selenites, being olderthan we, are wiser, and have not invented _gunpowder_."
At this moment Diana joined in the conversation by a sonorous barking.She was asking for her breakfast.
"Ah!" said Michel Ardan, "in our discussion we have forgotten Diana andSatellite."
Immediately a good-sized pie was given to the dog, which devoured ithungrily.
"Do you see, Barbicane," said Michel, "we should have made a secondNoah's Ark of this projectile, and borne with us to the moon a couple ofevery kind of domestic animal."
"I dare say; but room would have failed us."
"Oh!" said Michel, "we might have squeezed a little."
"The fact is," replied Nicholl, "that cows, bulls, and horses, and allruminants, would have been very useful on the lunar continent, butunfortunately the car could neither have been made a stable nor a shed."
"Well, we might at least have brought a donkey, only a little donkey;that courageous beast which old Silenus loved to mount. I love those olddonkeys; they are the least favoured animals in creation; they are notonly beaten while alive, but even after they are dead."
"How do you make that out?" asked Barbicane.
"Why," said Michel, "they make their skins into drums."
Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at this ridiculous remark.But a c
ry from their merry companion stopped them. The latter was leaningover the spot where Satellite lay. He rose, saying,--
"My good Satellite is no longer ill."
"Ah!" said Nicholl.
"No," answered Michel, "he is dead! There," added he, in a piteous tone,"that is embarrassing. I much fear, my poor Diana, that you will leaveno progeny in the lunar regions!"
Indeed the unfortunate Satellite had not survived its wound.
It was quite dead. Michel Ardan looked at his friends with a ruefulcountenance.
"One question presents itself," said Barbicane. "We cannot keep the deadbody of this dog with us for the next forty-eight hours."
"No! certainly not," replied Nicholl; "but our scuttles are fixed onhinges; they can be let down. We will open one, and throw the body outinto space."
The president thought for some moments, and then said,--
"Yes, we must do so, but at the same time taking very great precautions."
"Why?" asked Michel.
"For two reasons which you will understand," answered Barbicane. "Thefirst relates to the air shut up in the projectile, and of which we mustlose as little as possible."
"But we manufacture the air?"
"Only in part. We make only the oxygen, my worthy Michel; and withregard to that, we must watch that the apparatus does not furnish theoxygen in too great a quantity; for an excess would bring us very seriousphysiological troubles. But if we make the oxygen, we do not make theazote, that medium which the lungs do not absorb, and which ought toremain intact; and that azote will escape rapidly through the openscuttles."
"Oh! the time for throwing out poor Satellite?" said Michel.
"Agreed; but we must act quickly."
"And the second reason?" asked Michel.
"The second reason is that we must not let the outer cold, which isexcessive, penetrate the projectile or we shall be frozen to death."
"But the sun?"
"The sun warms our projectile, which absorbs its rays; but it does notwarm the vacuum in which we are floating at this moment. Where there isno air, there is no more heat than diffused light; and the same withdarkness: it is cold where the sun's rays do not strike direct. Thistemperature is only the temperature produced by the radiation of thestars; that is to say, what the terrestrial globe would undergo if thesun disappeared one day."
"Which is not to be feared," replied Nicholl.
"Who knows?" said Michel Ardan. "But, in admitting that the sun does notgo out, might it not happen that the earth might move away from it?"
"There!" said Barbicane, "there is Michel with his ideas."
"And," continued Michel, "do we not know that in 1861 the earth passedthrough the tail of a comet? Or let us suppose a comet whose power ofattraction is greater than that of the sun. The terrestrial orbit willbend towards the wandering star, and the earth, becoming its satellite,will be drawn such a distance that the rays of the sun will have noaction on its surface."
"That _might_ happen, indeed," replied Barbicane, "but the consequencesof such a displacement need not be so formidable as you suppose."
"And why not?"
"Because the heat and the cold would be equalized on our globe. It hasbeen calculated that, had our earth been carried along in its course bythe comet of 1861, at its perihelion, that is, its nearest approach tothe sun, it would have undergone a heat 28,000 times greater than thatof summer. But this heat, which is sufficient to evaporate the waters,would have formed a thick ring of cloud, which would have modified thatexcessive temperature; hence the compensation between the cold of theaphelion and the heat of the perihelion."
"At how many degrees," asked Nicholl, "is the temperature of the planetaryspaces estimated?"
"Formerly," replied Barbicane, "it was greatly exaggerated; but now,after the calculations of Fourier, of the French Academy of Science, itis not supposed to exceed 60 deg. Centigrade below zero."
"Pooh!" said Michel, "that's nothing!"
"It is very much," replied Barbicane; "the temperature which was observedin the polar regions, at Melville Island and Fort Reliance, that is 76deg. Fahrenheit below zero."
"If I mistake not," said Nicholl, "M. Pouillet, another savant, estimatesthe temperature of space at 250 deg. Fahrenheit below zero. We shall,however, be able to verify these calculations for ourselves."
"Not at present; because the solar rays, beating directly upon ourthermometer, would give, on the contrary, a very high temperature. But,when we arrive in the moon, during its fifteen days of night at eitherface, we shall have leisure to make the experiment, for our satellitelies in a vacuum."
"What do you mean by a _vacuum?_" asked Michel. "Is it perfectly such?"
"It is absolutely void of air."
"And is the air replaced by nothing whatever?"
"By the ether only," replied Barbicane.
"And pray what is the ether?"
"The ether, my friend, is an agglomeration of imponderable atoms, which,relatively to their dimensions, are as far removed from each other asthe celestial bodies are in space. It is these atoms which, by theirvibratory motion, produce both light and heat in the universe."
They now proceeded to the burial of Satellite. They had merely to drophim into space, in the same way that sailors drop a body into the sea;but, as President Barbicane suggested, they must act quickly, so as tolose as little as possible of that air whose elasticity would rapidlyhave spread it into space. The bolts of the right scuttle, the openingof which measured about twelve inches across, were carefully drawn,whilst Michel, quite grieved, prepared to launch his dog into space.The glass, raised by a powerful lever, which enabled it to overcome thepressure of the inside air on the walls of the projectile, turned rapidlyon its hinges, and Satellite was thrown out. Scarcely a particle of aircould have escaped, and the operation was so successful, that later onBarbicane did not fear to dispose of the rubbish which encumbered thecar.
Illustration: SATELLITE WAS THROWN OUT.
