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When Captain Nicholl said that the projectile would be broken like glass, Michel answered that he would retard the fall by means of fusees properly arranged. In fact, powerful fusees, resting upon the bottom, and being fired outside, might, by producing a recoil action, lessen the speed of the bullet.
And Michel, rising, went to look at the lunar disc, which shone with intolerable brilliancy. "By Jove!" said he, "it must be hot up there!" "Without considering," replied Nicholl, "that the day lasts 360 hours!" "And to compensate that," said Barbicane, "the nights have the same length; and as heat is restored by radiation, their temperature can only be that of the planetary space."
Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club returned without delay to Baltimore, and were there received with indescribable enthusiasm. The president's travelling notes were ready to be given up for publicity. The New York Herald bought this manuscript at a price which is not yet known, but which must have been enormous.
What time is it?" asked Barbicane. "Three o'clock," answered Nicholl. "How time goes," said Michel, "in the conversation of scientific men such as we are! Certainly, I feel I know too much! I feel that I am becoming a well!" Saying which, Michel hoisted himself to the roof of the projectile, "to observe the moon better," he pretended.
"No," said Nicholl, "since the bottom of the projectile is not turning to the lunar disc!" At this moment, Barbicane, quitting his scuttle, turned to his two companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, and his lips contracted. "We are falling!" said he. "Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "on to the moon?" "On to the earth!"
It seems to me that I see our brave countrymen encamped at the bottom of a valley, on the borders of a Selenite stream, near the projectile, half buried by its fall, amidst volcanic remains, Captain Nicholl beginning his levelling operations, President Barbicane putting his travelling notes in order, Michel Ardan performing the lunar solitudes with his Londrès cigar "
"What is the matter?" asked Michel Ardan, much surprised. "What is the matter! why, if at this moment our speed had already diminished one-third by friction, the initiatory speed ought to have been " "Seventeen thousand yards." "And the Cambridge Observatory declared that twelve thousand yards was enough at starting; and our projectile, which only started with that speed " "Well?" asked Nicholl.
"And what are those means?" "That of utilising the force of recoil in our rockets." "Ah, why not?" said Nicholl. "We have not yet utilised that force, it is true," said Barbicane, "but we shall do so." "When?" asked Michel. "When the time comes.
Poor Diana, with her head low, would suffer before her masters from the presence of this gas. But Captain Nicholl hastened to remedy this state of things, by placing on the floor several receivers containing caustic potash, which he shook about for a time, and this substance, greedy of carbonic acid, soon completely absorbed it, thus purifying the air. An inventory of instruments was then begun.
Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl awaited with the most lively impatience this "projectile compartment" in which they were to take their passage for the discovery of a new world. It must be acknowledged that it was a magnificent piece of metal, a metallurgic production that did the greatest honour to the industrial genius of the Americans.
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