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Updated: May 9, 2025
"Besides," as Ardan observed, "a plain is a more suitable landing place than a mountain. A Selenite deposited on the top of Mount Everest or even on Mont Blanc, could hardly be considered, in strict language, to have arrived on Earth." "Not to talk," added M'Nicholl, "of the comfort of the thing! When you land on a plain, there you are.
"We're not to land in the Moon! Well! let us do the next best thing pass close enough to discover her secrets!" But M'Nicholl could not accept the situation so coolly. On the contrary, he decidedly lost his temper, as is occasionally the case with even phlegmatic men. He muttered an oath or two, but in a voice hardly loud enough to reach Barbican's ear.
"What can we throw overboard? We have no ballast like balloon-men." "I should like to know," interrupted M'Nicholl, "what would be the good of throwing anything at all overboard. Any one with a particle of common sense in his head, can see that the lightened Projectile should only move the quicker!" "Slower, you mean," said Ardan. "Quicker, I mean," replied the Captain.
"On the Earth or off it!" cried Barbican, striking his head suddenly; "now I see it! You're right, Captain! Confound the bolide that we met the first night of our journey!" "Hey?" cried Ardan. "What do you mean?" asked M'Nicholl. "I mean," replied Barbican, with a voice now perfectly calm, and in a tone of quiet conviction, "that our deviation is due altogether to that wandering meteor."
I need not say how low that is in the scale, or that it would be the temperature to which our Earth should fall, if the Sun were suddenly extinguished." "Little fear of that for a few more million years," said M'Nicholl. "Who can tell?" asked Ardan. "Besides, even admitting that the Sun will not soon be extinguished, what is to prevent the Earth from shooting away from him?"
"Don't mention it," replied Barbican, turning towards M'Nicholl, still in the dark, and addressing him exclusively; "You see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's invisible side receives at once its light and heat is exactly the period of her conjunction, that is to say, when she is lying between the Earth and the Sun.
"What?" asked Ardan, much bewildered. "We are already far beyond the limits of the terrestrial atmosphere! Why do you think so?" M'Nicholl was still too much flustered to venture a word. "If you want me to answer your question satisfactorily, my dear Ardan," replied Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you will have the kindness to put your questions in English."
The words "possible" and "impossible" always grated on Ardan's ears. If he had been a lexicographer, he would have rigidly excluded them from his dictionary, both as meaningless and useless. He was preparing an answer for Barbican, when he was cut out by a sudden observation from M'Nicholl.
Do you think that their inhabitants are as ignorant regarding their satellites as we are regarding ours?" "On that subject," observed M'Nicholl, "I could venture an answer myself, though, of course, without pretending to speak dogmatically on any such open question. The satellites of the other planets, by their comparative proximity, must be much easier to study than our Moon.
Even when completely screened by the Earth, he would form a beautiful circle around her of yellow, red, and crimson light, in which she would appear to float like a vast sphere of jet in a glowing sea of gold, rubies, sparkling carbuncles and garnets." "It seems to me," said M'Nicholl, "that, taking everything into consideration, the invisible side has been rather shabbily treated."
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