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Barbicane took enough chlorate of potash and caustic potash for two months, as he feared unforeseen delay. An extremely ingenious machine working automatically put the elements for good air in motion. The projectile, therefore, was ready, and the only thing left to do was to lower it into the gun, an operation full of perils and difficulty.
"Are we falling?" asked Michel Ardan at last. "No," answered Nicholl; "for the bottom of the projectile has not turned towards the lunar disc!" At that moment Barbicane left his window and turned towards his two companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, his lips contracted. "We are falling!" said he. "Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "upon the moon?"
"Look at the interior humidity condensing on the port-lights. If this fall continues the vapour of our respiration will fall around us in snow." "Let us get a thermometer," said Barbicane. It will be readily seen that an ordinary thermometer would have given no result under the circumstances in which it was going to be exposed.
Barbicane immediately enlightened his companion as to what he knew about lunar rifts.
Barbicane was the first to set foot on deck, and in a voice of which he vainly tried to conceal the emotion, called "Michel Ardan." "Here!" replied an individual perched on the poop. Barbicane, with arms crossed, looked fixedly at the passenger of the Atlanta. He was a man of about forty-two years of age, of large build, but slightly round-shouldered.
"And I," said Michel, "if I had known how to return, I would never have started." "There's an answer!" cried Nicholl. "I quite approve of Michel's words," said Barbicane; "and add, that the question has no real interest. Later, when we think it is advisable to return, we will take counsel together. If the Columbiad is not there, the projectile will be." "That is a step certainly.
Now the moon only appears in the zenith in the places situated between 0° and 28° of latitude, or, in other terms, when her declination is only 28°. The question was, therefore, to determine the exact point of the globe where the immense Columbiad should be cast. On the 20th of October the Gun Club held a general meeting. Barbicane brought a magnificent map of the United States by Z. Belltropp.
With more certainty than the illustrious Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to recognize their nature. "They are snow," he exclaimed. "Snow?" repeated Nicholl. "Yes, Nicholl, snow; the surface of which is deeply frozen. See how they reflect the luminous rays. Cooled lava would never give out such intense reflection. There must then be water, there must be air on the moon.
They counted the hours as they passed too slow for their wish; Barbicane and Nicholl were obstinately plunged in their calculations, Michel going and coming between the narrow walls, and watching that impassive moon with a longing eye. At times recollections of the earth crossed their minds. They saw once more their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of all, J. T. Maston.
Impey Barbicane became from that day one of the greatest citizens of the United States, something like a Washington of science, and one fact amongst several will serve to show the sudden homage which was paid by a nation to one man.
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