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Updated: May 9, 2025
"Yes," said M'Nicholl sententiously; "for a visit to the South Sea a Turk would willingly forego Mecca; and a Bostonian would prefer Sidney even to Paris." "Well," resumed Barbican, "this interesting marvel is reserved for the Selenite that inhabits the side of the Moon which is always turned away from our globe."
"No matter for that!" cried Ardan; "if we ever become Selenites we must inhabit the visible side. My weak point is light, and that I must have when it can be got." "Unless, as perhaps in this case, you might be paying too dear for it," observed M'Nicholl. "How would you like to pay for your light by the loss of the atmosphere, which, according to some philosophers, is piled away on the dark side?"
"Towards the Moon?" exclaimed his companions. "No!" was the terrible reply. "Towards the Earth!" "Sacré!" cried Ardan, as usually letting off his excitement in French. "Fire and fury!" cried M'Nicholl, completely startled out of his habitual sang froid. "Thunder and lightning!" swore the usually serene Barbican, now completely stunned by the blow. "I had never expected this!"
"Barbican's a martyr to science, let's hear his fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" "Three cheers for M'Nicholl and the Frenchman!"
"That's Mare Nectaris, the gray spot over there on the southwest, isn't it?" asked M'Nicholl; "is there any likelihood of our getting a better view of it?" "Not the slightest," answered Barbican, "unless we go round the Moon and return this way, like a satellite describing its orbit." By this time they had arrived at a point vertical to the mountain centre.
Barbican humored him by repeating the observation, but M'Nicholl would only notice it by a grunt of doubtful meaning. "Was Galileo tolerably successful in his calculations?" asked Ardan, resuming the conversation. Before answering this question, Barbican unrolled the map of the Moon, which a faint light like that of day-break now enabled him to examine.
"That's what's more than any other man can do," said M'Nicholl drily, "who wants to take a jump of 50 miles!" "Better not try it, friend Ardan," said Barbican grimly: "think of Satellite! The Moon is no more attainable by your body than by our Projectile. You are far more comfortable in here than when floating about in empty space like a bolide."
"Right at last, Ardan, my boy!" cried M'Nicholl, quietly rubbing the glass of his spectacles; "I should like to see the whole lot of them carted in there without a moment's delay!" "It couldn't hold the half of them!" observed Barbican drily.
Now the great trouble is this: If the Aposelenetic point should coincide with the point of lunar attraction, our velocity must certainly become nil, and the Projectile must remain relatively motionless forever!" "What do you mean by 'relatively motionless'?" asked M'Nicholl, who was carefully studying the situation.
"Ardan, you had better invent something to kill attraction," observed M'Nicholl drily; "you can do it if you try. Jackson and Morton have killed pain by sulphuric ether. Suppose you try your hand on attraction!"
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