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At last after long discussions it was agreed that the travellers should be content to take with them an excellent sporting dog belonging to Nicholl and a vigorous Newfoundland of prodigious strength. Several cases of the most useful seeds were included amongst the indispensable objects. If they had allowed him, Michel Ardan would have taken several sacks of earth to sow them in.
In fact, Captain Nicholl, with his gun on the ground, forgetting the dangers of his situation, was occupied in delivering as delicately as possible the victim taken in the meshes of the monstrous spider. When he had finished he let the little bird fly away; it fluttered its wings joyfully and disappeared.
Neither Captain Nicholl nor I could utter a word, but with streaming eyes we nodded our consent. Without doubt Arnold Bentham was the best collected of the three of us. My own anguish was prodigious, and I am confident that Captain Nicholl suffered equally. But what was one to do? The thing was fair and proper and had been decided by God.
"And could you have made the calculation yourself?" asked Michel Ardan. "Certainly; Nicholl and I could have determined it if the notice from the observatory had not saved us the trouble." "Well, old fellow," answered Michel, "they might sooner cut off my head, beginning with my feet, than have made me solve that problem!" "Because you do not know algebra," replied Barbicane tranquilly.
The projectile was consequently cast on the 2nd of November, and immediately forwarded by the Eastern Railway to Stones Hill, which it reached without accident on the 10th of that month, where Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl were waiting impatiently for it.
"This inconvenience is the same under two faces, for the light reflected by the earth is evidently deprived of heat. However, this invisible face is still more deprived of heat than the visible face. I say that for you, Nicholl; Michel would probably not understand." "Thank you," said Michel.
During this time Nicholl, the calculator, looked over the minutes of their passage, and worked out figures with unparalleled dexterity.
To Barbicane and Nicholl the "Sea of Clouds" was an immense depression of ground, with circular mountains scattered about on it; covering a great part of the western side of the southern hemisphere, it covered 184,800 square leagues, and its centre was in south latitude 15°, and west longitude 20°. The Ocean of Tempests, Oceanus Procellarum, the largest plain on the lunar disc, covered a surface of 328,300 square leagues, its centre being in north latitude 10°, and east longitude 45°. From its bosom emerge the admirable shining mountains of Kepler and Aristarchus.
"Her temperature would be carried to such a point," answered Barbicane, "that she would be immediately reduced to vapour." "Good," said Michel; "that means of ending the world would simplify many things." "And suppose the earth were to fall upon the sun?" said Nicholl.
But Barbicane had furnished himself with a spirit thermometer on Wafferdin's system, which gives the minima of excessively low temperatures. Before beginning the experiment, this instrument was compared with an ordinary one, and then Barbicane prepared to use it. "How shall we set about it?" asked Nicholl. "Nothing is easier," replied Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss.
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