All Around the Moon

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER XIV.

  A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS.

  The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole whenthe startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, afew seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from thebrightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was soabrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzlingeffulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have beensuddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off.

  "Where's the Moon?" cried Ardan in amazement.

  "It appears as if she had been wiped out of creation!" cried M'Nicholl.

  Barbican said nothing, but observed carefully. Not a particle, however,could he see of the disc that had glittered so resplendently before hiseyes a few moments ago. Not a shadow, not a gleam, not the slightestvestige could he trace of its existence. The darkness being profound,the dazzling splendor of the stars only gave a deeper blackness to thepitchy sky. No wonder. The travellers found themselves now in a nightthat had plenty of time not only to become black itself, but to steepeverything connected with it in palpable blackness. This was the night354-1/4 hours long, during which the invisible face of the Moon isturned away from the Sun. In this black darkness the Projectile nowfully participated. Having plunged into the Moon's shadow, it was aseffectually cut off from the action of the solar rays as was every pointon the invisible lunar surface itself.

  The travellers being no longer able to see each other, it was proposedto light the gas, though such an unexpected demand on a commodity atonce so scarce and so valuable was certainly disquieting. The gas, itwill be remembered, had been intended for heating alone, notillumination, of which both Sun and Moon had promised a never endingsupply. But here both Sun and Moon, in a single instant vanished frombefore their eyes and left them in Stygian darkness.

  "It's all the Sun's fault!" cried Ardan, angrily trying to throw theblame on something, and, like every angry man in such circumstances,bound to be rather nonsensical.

  "Put the saddle on the right horse, Ardan," said M'Nichollpatronizingly, always delighted at an opportunity of counting a pointoff the Frenchman. "You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, insetting herself like a screen between us and the Sun?"

  "No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend'spatronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion rightor wrong. "I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we useup our gas!"

  "Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl. "It's the Moon, who by her interposition hascut off the Sun's light."

  "The Sun had no business to allow it to be cut off," said Ardan, stillangry and therefore decidedly loose in his assertions.

  Before M'Nicholl could reply, Barbican interposed, and his even voicewas soon heard pouring balm on the troubled waters.

  "Dear friends," he observed, "a little reflection on either side wouldconvince you that our present situation is neither the Moon's fault northe Sun's fault. If anything is to be blamed for it, it is ourProjectile which, instead of rigidly following its allotted course, hasawkwardly contrived to deviate from it. However, strict justice mustacquit even the Projectile. It only obeyed a great law of nature inshifting its course as soon as it came within the sphere of thatinopportune bolide's influence."

  "All right!" said Ardan, as usual in the best of humor after Barbicanhad laid down the law. "I have no doubt it is exactly as you say; and,now that all is settled, suppose we take breakfast. After such a hardnight spent in work, a little refreshment would not be out of place!"

  Such a proposition being too reasonable even for M'Nicholl to oppose,Ardan turned on the gas, and had everything ready for the meal in a fewminutes. But, this time, breakfast was consumed in absolute silence. Notoasts were offered, no hurrahs were uttered. A painful uneasiness hadseized the hearts of the daring travellers. The darkness into whichthey were so suddenly plunged, told decidedly on their spirits. Theyfelt almost as if they had been suddenly deprived of their sight. Thatthick, dismal savage blackness, which Victor Hugo's pen is so fond ofoccasionally revelling in, surrounded them on all sides and crushed themlike an iron shroud.

  It was felt worse than ever when, breakfast being over, Ardan carefullyturned off the gas, and everything within the Projectile was as dark aswithout. However, though they could not see each other's faces, theycould hear each other's voices, and therefore they soon began to talk.The most natural subject of conversation was this terrible night 354hours long, which the laws of nature have imposed on the Lunarinhabitants. Barbican undertook to give his friends some explanationregarding the cause of the startling phenomenon, and the consequencesresulting from it.

  "Yes, startling is the word for it," observed Barbican, replying to aremark of Ardan's; "and still more so when we reflect that not only areboth lunar hemispheres deprived, by turns, of sun light for nearly 15days, but that also the particular hemisphere over which we are at thismoment floating is all that long night completely deprived ofearth-light. In other words, it is only one side of the Moon's disc thatever receives any light from the Earth. From nearly every portion of oneside of the Moon, the Earth is always as completely absent as the Sun isfrom us at midnight. Suppose an analogous case existed on the Earth;suppose, for instance, that neither in Europe, Asia or North Americawas the Moon ever visible--that, in fact, it was to be seen only at ourantipodes. With what astonishment should we contemplate her for thefirst time on our arrival in Australia or New Zealand!"

  "Every man of us would pack off to Australia to see her!" cried Ardan.

  "Yes," said M'Nicholl sententiously; "for a visit to the South Sea aTurk would willingly forego Mecca; and a Bostonian would prefer Sidneyeven to Paris."

  "Well," resumed Barbican, "this interesting marvel is reserved for theSelenite that inhabits the side of the Moon which is always turned awayfrom our globe."

  "And which," added the Captain, "we should have had the unspeakablesatisfaction of contemplating if we had only arrived at the period whenthe Sun and the Earth are not at the same side of the Moon--that is, 15days sooner or later than now."

  "For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding theseinterruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificentsplendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenitewho inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a residenton the illuminated side. The former, when his long, blazing, roasting,dazzling day is over, has a night 354 hours long, whose darkness, likethat, just now surrounding us, is ever unrelieved save by the coldcheerless rays of the stars. But the latter has hardly seen his fierysun sinking on one horizon when he beholds rising on the opposite one anorb, milder, paler, and colder indeed than the Sun, but fully as largeas thirteen of our full Moons, and therefore shedding thirteen times asmuch light. This would be our Earth. It would pass through all itsphases too, exactly like our Satellite. The Selenites would have theirNew Earth, Full Earth, and Last Quarter. At midnight, grandlyilluminated, it would shine with the greatest glory. But that is almostas much as can be said for it. Its futile heat would but poorlycompensate for its superior radiance. All the calorie accumulated in thelunar soil during the 354 hours day would have by this time radiatedcompletely into space. An intensity of cold would prevail, in comparisonto which a Greenland winter is tropical. The temperature of interstellarspace, 250 deg. below zero, would be reached. Our Selenite, heartily tiredof the cold pale Earth, would gladly see her sink towards the horizon,waning as she sank, till at last she appeared no more than half full.Then suddenly a faint rim of the solar orb reveals itself on the edge ofthe opposite sky. Slowly, more than 14 times more slowly than with us,does the Sun lift himself above the lunar horizon. In half an hour, onlyhalf his disc is revealed, but that is more than enough to flood thelunar landscape with a dazzling intensity of light, of which we have nocounterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softensit, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. Itbreaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzlin
g, blinding, like the electriclight seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blastingbecomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly,slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By thattime the heat has increased from an arctic temperature to double theboiling water point, from 250 deg. below zero to 500 deg. above it, or the pointat which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack,shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over;and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed upforever in the yawing chasms of the bottomless craters."

  "Bravo!" cried Ardan, clapping his hands softly: "our President issublime! He reminds me of the overture of _Guillaume Tell_!"

  "Souvenir de Marston!" growled M'Nicholl.

  "These phenomena," continued Barbican, heedless of interruption and hisvoice betraying a slight glow of excitement, "these phenomena going onwithout interruption from month to month, from year to year, from age toage, from _eon_ to _eon_, have finally convinced me that--what?" heasked his hearers, interrupting himself suddenly.

  --"That the existence at the present time--" answered M'Nicholl.

  --"Of either animal or vegetable life--" interrupted Ardan.

  --"In the Moon is hardly possible!" cried both in one voice.

  "Besides?" asked Barbican: "even if there _is_ any life--?"

  --"That to live on the dark side would be much more inconvenient than onthe light side!" cried M'Nicholl promptly.

  --"That there is no choice between them!" cried Ardan just as ready."For my part, I should think a residence on Mt. Erebus or in GrinnellLand a terrestrial paradise in comparison to either. The _Earth shine_might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the longnight, but for any practical advantage towards heat or life, it would beperfectly useless!"

  "But there is another serious difference between the two sides," saidBarbican, "in addition to those enumerated. The dark side is actuallymore troubled with excessive variations of temperature than the lightone."

  "That assertion of our worthy President," interrupted Ardan, "with allpossible respect for his superior knowledge, I am disposed to question."

  "It's as clear as day!" said Barbican.

  "As clear as mud, you mean, Mr. President;" interrupted Ardan, "thetemperature of the light side is excited by two objects at the sametime, the Earth and the Sun, whereas--"

  --"I beg your pardon, Ardan--" said Barbican.

  --"Granted, dear boy--granted with the utmost pleasure!" interrupted theFrenchman.

  "I shall probably have to direct my observations altogether to you,Captain," continued Barbican; "friend Michael interrupts me so oftenthat I'm afraid he can hardly understand my remarks."

  "I always admired your candor, Barbican," said Ardan; "it's a noblequality, a grand quality!"

  "Don't mention it," replied Barbican, turning towards M'Nicholl, stillin the dark, and addressing him exclusively; "You see, my dear Captain,the period at which the Moon's invisible side receives at once its lightand heat is exactly the period of her _conjunction_, that is to say,when she is lying between the Earth and the Sun. In comparison thereforewith the place which she had occupied at her _opposition_, or when hervisible side was fully illuminated, she is nearer to the Sun by doubleher distance from the Earth, or nearly 480 thousand miles. Therefore, mydear Captain, you can see how when the invisible side of the Moon isturned towards the Sun, she is nearly half a million of miles nearer tohim than she had been before. Therefore, her heat should be so much thegreater."

  "I see it at a glance," said the Captain.

  "Whereas--" continued Barbican.

  "One moment!" cried Ardan.

  "Another interruption!" exclaimed Barbican; "What is the meaning of it,Sir?"

  "I ask my honorable friend the privilege of the floor for one moment,"cried Ardan.

  "What for?"

  "To continue the explanation."

  "Why so?"

  "To show that I can understand as well as interrupt!"

  "You have the floor!" exclaimed Barbican, in a voice no longer showingany traces of ill humor.

  "I expected no less from the honorable gentleman's well known courtesy,"replied Ardan. Then changing his manner and imitating to the lifeBarbican's voice, articulation, and gestures, he continued: "Whereas,you see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's visible sidereceives at once its light and heat, is exactly the period of her_opposition_, that is to say, when she is lying on one side of the Earthand the Sun at the other. In comparison therefore with the point whichshe had occupied in _conjunction_, or when her invisible side was fullyilluminated, she is farther from the Sun by double her distance from theEarth, or nearly 480,000 miles. Therefore, my dear Captain, you canreadily see how when the Moon's invisible side is turned _from_ the Sun,she is nearly half a million miles further from him than she had beenbefore. Therefore her heat should be so much the less."

  "Well done, friend Ardan!" cried Barbican, clapping his hands withpleasure. "Yes, Captain, he understood it as well as either of us thewhole time. Intelligence, not indifference, caused him to interrupt.Wonderful fellow!"

  "That's the kind of a man I am!" replied Ardan, not without some degreeof complacency. Then he added simply: "Barbican, my friend, if Iunderstand your explanations so readily, attribute it all to theirastonishing lucidity. If I have any faculity, it is that of being ableto scent common sense at the first glimmer. Your sentences are sosteeped in it that I catch their full meaning long before you endthem--hence my apparent inattention. But we're not yet done with thevisible face of the Moon: it seems to me you have not yet enumerated allthe advantages in which it surpasses the other side."

  "Another of these advantages," continued Barbican, "is that it is fromthe visible side alone that eclipses of the Sun can be seen. This isself-evident, the interposition of the Earth being possible only betweenthis visible face and the Sun. Furthermore, such eclipses of the Sunwould be of a far more imposing character than anything of the kind tobe witnessed from our Earth. This is chiefly for two reasons: first,when we, terrestrians, see the Sun eclipsed, we notice that, the discsof the two orbs being of about the same apparent size, one cannot hidethe other except for a short time; second, as the two bodies are movingin opposite directions, the total duration of the eclipse, even underthe most favorable circumstances, can't last longer than 7 minutes.Whereas to a Selenite who sees the Earth eclipse the Sun, not only doesthe Earth's disc appear four times larger than the Sun's, but also, ashis day is 14 times longer than ours, the two heavenly bodies mustremain several hours in contact. Besides, notwithstanding the apparentsuperiority of the Earth's disc, the refracting power of the atmospherewill never allow the Sun to be eclipsed altogether. Even when completelyscreened by the Earth, he would form a beautiful circle around her ofyellow, red, and crimson light, in which she would appear to float likea vast sphere of jet in a glowing sea of gold, rubies, sparklingcarbuncles and garnets."

  "It seems to me," said M'Nicholl, "that, taking everything intoconsideration, the invisible side has been rather shabbily treated."

  "I know I should not stay there very long," said Ardan; "the desire ofseeing such a splendid sight as that eclipse would be enough to bring meto the visible side as soon as possible."

  "Yes, I have no doubt of that, friend Michael," pursued Barbican; "butto see the eclipse it would not be necessary to quit the dark hemispherealtogether. You are, of course, aware that in consequence of herlibrations, or noddings, or wobblings, the Moon presents to the eyes ofthe Earth a little more than the exact half of her disc. She has twomotions, one on her path around the Earth, and the other a shiftingaround on her own axis by which she endeavors to keep the same sidealways turned towards our sphere. This she cannot always do, as whileone motion, the latter, is strictly uniform, the other being eccentric,sometimes accelerating her and sometimes retarding, she has not time toshift herself around completely and with perfect correspondence ofmovement. At her perigee, for instan
ce, she moves forward quicker thanshe can shift, so that we detect a portion of her western border beforeshe has time to conceal it. Similarly, at her apogee, when her rate ofmotion is comparatively slow, she shifts a little too quickly for hervelocity, and therefore cannot help revealing a certain portion of hereastern border. She shows altogether about 8 degrees of the dark side,about 4 at the east and 4 at the west, so that, out of her 360 degrees,about 188, in other words, a little more than 57 per cent., about 4/7 ofthe entire surface, becomes visible to human eyes. Consequently aSelenite could catch an occasional glimpse of our Earth, withoutaltogether quitting the dark side."

  "No matter for that!" cried Ardan; "if we ever become Selenites we mustinhabit the visible side. My weak point is light, and that I must havewhen 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 theloss of the atmosphere, which, according to some philosophers, is piledaway on the dark side?"

  "Ah! In that case I should consider a little before committing myself,"replied Ardan, "I should like to hear your opinion regarding such anotion, Barbican. Hey! Do your hear? Have astronomers any valid reasonsfor supposing the atmosphere to have fled to the dark side of the Moon?"

  "Defer that question till some other time, Ardan," whispered M'Nicholl;"Barbican is just now thinking out something that interests him far moredeeply than any empty speculation of astronomers. If you are near thewindow, look out through it towards the Moon. Can you see anything?"

  "I can feel the window with my hand; but for all I can see, I might aswell be over head and ears in a hogshead of ink."

  The two friends kept up a desultory conversation, but Barbican did nothear them. One fact, in particular, troubled him, and he sought in vainto account for it. Having come so near the Moon--about 30 miles--why hadnot the Projectile gone all the way? Had its velocity been very great,the tendency to fall could certainly be counteracted. But the velocitybeing undeniably very moderate, how explain such a decided resistance toLunar attraction? Had the Projectile come within the sphere of somestrange unknown influence? Did the neighborhood of some mysterious bodyretain it firmly imbedded in ether? That it would never reach the Moon,was now beyond all doubt; but where was it going? Nearer to her orfurther off? Or was it rushing resistlessly into infinity on the wingsof that pitchy night? Who could tell, know, calculate--who could evenguess, amid the horror of this gloomy blackness? Questions, like these,left Barbican no rest; in vain he tried to grapple with them; he feltlike a child before them, baffled and almost despairing.

  In fact, what could be more tantalizing? Just outside their windows,only a few leagues off, perhaps only a few miles, lay the radiant planetof the night, but in every respect as far off from the eyes of himselfand his companions as if she was hiding at the other side of Jupiter!And to their ears she was no nearer. Earthquakes of the old Titanic typemight at that very moment be upheaving her surface with resistlessforce, crashing mountain against mountain as fiercely as wave meets wavearound the storm-lashed cliffs of Cape Horn. But not the faintest faroff murmur even of such a mighty tumult could break the dead broodingsilence that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing theweird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening intogranite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in aspasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellerscould not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could nomore detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather.Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, was absent from hersurface. Her cries, her struggles, her groans, were all smotheredbeneath the impenetrable tomb of eternal silence!

  These were some of the fanciful ideas by which Ardan tried to amuse hiscompanions in the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. His efforts,however well meant, were not successful. M'Nicholl's growls were moresavage than usual, and even Barbican's patience was decidedly givingway. The loss of the other face they could have easily borne--with mostof its details they had been already familiar. But, no, it must be thedark face that now escaped their observation! The very one that fornumberless reasons they were actually dying to see! They looked out ofthe windows once more at the black Moon beneath them.

  There it lay below them, a round black spot, hiding the sweet faces ofthe stars, but otherwise no more distinguishable by the travellers thanif they were lying in the depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Andjust think. Only fifteen days before, that dark face had been splendidlyilluminated by the solar beams, every crater lustrous, every peaksparkling, every streak glistening under the vertical ray. In fifteendays later, a day light the most brilliant would have replaced amidnight the most Cimmerian. But in fifteen days later, where would theProjectile be? In what direction would it have been drawn by the forcesinnumerable of attractions incalculable? To such a question as this,even Ardan would reply only by an ominous shake of the head.

  We know already that our travellers, as well as astronomers generally,judging from that portion of the dark side occasionally revealed by theMoon's librations, were _pretty certain_ that there is no greatdifference between her two sides, as far as regards their physicalconstitutions. This portion, about the seventh part, shows plains andmountains, circles and craters, all of precisely the same nature asthose already laid down on the chart. Judging therefore from analogy,the other three-sevenths are, in all probability a world in everyrespect exactly like the visible face--that is, arid, desert, dead. Butour travellers also knew that _pretty certain_ is far from _quitecertain_, and that arguing merely from analogy may enable you to give agood guess, but can never lead you to an undoubted conclusion. What ifthe atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, whynot water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the wholecontinent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in itsseas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones thatwere capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what asatisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way oranother! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at thishemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. How gloriousit would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yetrested!

  Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of ourtravellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil ofdarkness the most profound. Still even then Ardan, as usual, formedsomewhat of an exception. Finding it impossible to see a particle of theLunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself bygazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens.And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity forgazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages. How Frayeof Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would haveenvied him!

  For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelledon such a scene of starry splendor. The black sky sparkled with lustrousfires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashingdiamonds. Ardan's eye could take in the whole extent in an easy sweepfrom the _Southern Cross_ to the _Little Bear_, thus embracing withinone glance not only the two polar stars of the present day, but also_Campus_ and _Vega_, which, by reason of the _precession of theEquinoxes_, are to be our polar stars 12,000 years hence. Hisimagination, as if intoxicated, reeled wildly through these sublimeinfinitudes and got lost in them. He forgot all about himself and allabout his companions. He forgot even the strangeness of the fate thathad sent them wandering through these forbidden regions, like abewildered comet that had lost its way. With what a soft sweet lightevery star glowed! No matter what its magnitude, the stream that flowedfrom it looked calm and holy. No twinkling, no scintillation, nonictitation, disturbed their pure and lambent gleam. No atmosphere hereinterposed its layers of humidity or of unequal density to interrupt thestately majesty of their effulgence. The longer he gazed upon them, themore absorbing became their attraction. He felt that they were grea
tkindly eyes looking down even yet with benevolence and protection onhimself and his companions now driving wildly through space, and lostin the pathless depths of the black ocean of infinity!

  He soon became aware that his friends, following his example, hadinterested themselves in gazing at the stars, and were now just asabsorbed as himself in the contemplation of the transcendent spectacle.For a long time all three continued to feast their eyes on all theglories of the starry firmament; but, strange to say, the part thatseemed to possess the strangest and weirdest fascination for theirwandering glances was the spot where the vast disc of the Moon showedlike an enormous round hole, black and soundless, and apparently deepenough to permit a glance into the darkest mysteries of the infinite.

  A disagreeable sensation, however, against which they had been for sometime struggling, at last put an end to their contemplations, andcompelled them to think of themselves. This was nothing less than apretty sharp cold, at first somewhat endurable, but which soon coveredthe inside surface of the window panes with a thick coating of ice. Thefact was that, the Sun's direct rays having no longer an opportunity ofwarming up the Projectile, the latter began to lose rapidly by radiationwhatever heat it had stored away within its walls. The consequence was avery decided falling of the thermometer, and so thick a condensation ofthe internal moisture on the window glasses as to soon render allexternal observations extremely difficult, if not actually impossible.

  The Captain, as the oldest man in the party, claimed the privilege ofsaying he could stand it no longer. Striking a light, he consulted thethermometer and cried out:

  "Seventeen degrees below zero, centigrade! that is certainly low enoughto make an old fellow like me feel rather chilly!"

  "Just one degree and a half above zero, Fahrenheit!" observed Barbican;"I really had no idea that it was so cold."

  His teeth actually chattered so much that he could hardly articulate;still he, as well as the others, disliked to entrench on their shortsupply of gas.

  "One feature of our journey that I particularly admire," said Ardan,trying to laugh with freezing lips, "is that we can't complain ofmonotony. At one time we are frying with the heat and blinded with thelight, like Indians caught on a burning prairie; at another, we arefreezing in the pitchy darkness of a hyperborean winter, like Sir JohnFranklin's merry men in the Bay of Boothia. _Madame La Nature_, youdon't forget your devotees; on the contrary, you overwhelm us with yourattentions!"

  "Our external temperature may be reckoned at how much?" asked theCaptain, making a desperate effort to keep up the conversation.

  "The temperature outside our Projectile must be precisely the same asthat of interstellar space in general," answered Barbican.

  "Is not this precisely the moment then," interposed Ardan, quickly,"for making an experiment which we could never have made as long as wewere in the sunshine?"

  "That's so!" exclaimed Barbican; "now or never! I'm glad you thought ofit, Ardan. We are just now in the position to find out the temperatureof space by actual experiment, and so see whose calculations are right,Fourier's or Pouillet's."

  "Let's see," asked Ardan, "who was Fourier, and who was Pouillet?"

  "Baron Fourier, of the French Academy, wrote a famous treatise on_Heat_, which I remember reading twenty years ago in Penington's bookstore," promptly responded the Captain; "Pouillet was an eminentprofessor of Physics at the Sorbonne, where he died, last year, Ithink."

  "Thank you, Captain," said Ardan; "the cold does not injure your memory,though it is decidedly on the advance. See how thick the ice is alreadyon the window panes! Let it only keep on and we shall soon have ourbreaths falling around us in flakes of snow."

  "Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbican, who had already sethimself to work in a business-like manner.

  A thermometer of the usual kind, as may be readily supposed, would be ofno use whatever in the experiment that was now about to be made. In anordinary thermometer Mercury freezes hard when exposed to a temperatureof 40 deg. below zero. But Barbican had provided himself with a _Minimum_,_self-recording_ thermometer, of a peculiar nature, invented byWolferdin, a friend of Arago's, which could correctly registerexceedingly low degrees of temperature. Before beginning the experiment,this instrument was tested by comparison with one of the usual kind, andthen Barbican hesitated a few moments regarding the best means ofemploying it.

  "How shall we start this experiment?" asked the Captain.

  "Nothing simpler," answered Ardan, always ready to reply; "you just openyour windows, and fling out your thermometer. It follows yourProjectile, as a calf follows her mother. In a quarter of an hour youput out your hand--"

  "Put out your hand!" interrupted Barbican.

  "Put out your hand--" continued Ardan, quietly.

  "You do nothing of the kind," again interrupted Barbican; "that is,unless you prefer, instead of a hand, to pull back a frozen stump,shapeless, colorless and lifeless!"

  "I prefer a hand," said Ardan, surprised and interested.

  "Yes," continued Barbican, "the instant your hand left the Projectile,it would experience the same terrible sensations as is produced bycauterizing it with an iron bar white hot. For heat, whether rushingrapidly out of our bodies or rapidly entering them, is identically thesame force and does the same amount of damage. Besides I am by no meanscertain that we are still followed by the objects that we flung out ofthe Projectile."

  "Why not?" asked M'Nicholl; "we saw them all outside not long ago."

  "But we can't see them outside now," answered Barbican; "that may beaccounted for, I know, by the darkness, but it may be also by the factof their not being there at all. In a case like this, we can't rely onuncertainties. Therefore, to make sure of not losing our thermometer, weshall fasten it with a string and easily pull it in whenever we like."

  This advice being adopted, the window was opened quickly, and theinstrument was thrown out at once by M'Nicholl, who held it fastened bya short stout cord so that it could be pulled in immediately. The windowhad hardly been open for longer than a second, yet that second had beenenough to admit a terrible icy chill into the interior of theProjectile.

  "Ten thousand ice-bergs!" cried Ardan, shivering all over; "it's coldenough to freeze a white bear!"

  Barbican waited quietly for half an hour; that time he considered quitelong enough to enable the instrument to acquire the temperature of theinterstellar space. Then he gave the signal, and it was instantly pulledin.

  It took him a few moments to calculate the quantity of mercury that hadescaped into the little diaphragm attached to the lower part of theinstrument; then he said:

  "A hundred and forty degrees, centigrade, below zero!"

  IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR.]

  "Two hundred and twenty degrees, Fahrenheit, below zero!" criedM'Nicholl; "no wonder that we should feel a little chilly!"

  "Pouillet is right, then," said Barbican, "and Fourier wrong."

  "Another victory for Sorbonne over the Academy!" cried Ardan. "_Vive laSorbonne!_ Not that I'm a bit proud of finding myself in the midst of atemperature so very _distingue_--though it is more than three timescolder than Hayes ever felt it at Humboldt Glacier or Nevenoff atYakoutsk. If Madame the Moon becomes as cold as this every time that hersurface is withdrawn from the sunlight for fourteen days, I don't think,boys, that her hospitality is much to hanker after!"