The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  But it was not enough to renew the oxygen consumed; the carbonic acid gas produced by expiration must also be absorbed. Now for the last twelve hours the atmosphere of the bullet had become loaded with this deleterious gas, the product of the combustion of the elements of blood by the oxygen taken into the lungs. Nicholl perceived this state of the air by seeing Diana palpitate painfully. In fact, carbonic acid gas--through a phenomenon identical with the one to be noticed in the famous Dog's Grotto--accumulated at the bottom of the projectile by reason of its weight. Poor Diana, whose head was low down, therefore necessarily suffered from it before her masters. But Captain Nicholl made haste to remedy this state of things. He placed on the floor of the projectile several receptacles containing caustic potash which he shook about for some time, and this matter, which is very greedy of carbonic acid, completely absorbed it, and thus purified the interior air.

  An inventory of the instruments was then begun. The thermometers and barometers were undamaged, with the exception of a minimum thermometer the glass of which was broken. An excellent aneroid was taken out of its padded box and hung upon the wall. Of course it was only acted upon by and indicated the pressure of the air inside the projectile; but it also indicated the quantity of moisture it contained. At that moment its needle oscillated between 25.24 and 25.08. It was at "set fair."

  Barbicane had brought several compasses, which were found intact. It will be easily understood that under those circumstances their needles were acting at random, without any constant direction. In fact, at the distance the projectile was from the earth the magnetic pole could not exercise any sensible action upon the apparatus. But these compasses, taken upon the lunar disc, might show particular phenomena. In any case it would be interesting to verify whether the earth's satellite, like the earth herself, submitted to magnetical influence.

  A hypsometer to measure the altitude of the lunar mountains, a sextant to take the height of the sun, a theodolite, an instrument for surveying, telescopes to be used as the moon approached--all these instruments were carefully inspected and found in good condition, notwithstanding the violence of the initial shock.

  As to the utensils--pickaxes, spades, and different tools--of which Nicholl had made a special collection, the sacks of various kinds of grain, and the shrubs which Michel Ardan counted upon transplanting into Selenite soil, they were in their places in the upper corners of the projectile. There was made a sort of granary, which the prodigal Frenchman had filled. What was in it was very little known, and the merry fellow did not enlighten anybody. From time to time he climbed up the cramp-irons riveted in the walls to this store-room, the inspection of which he had reserved to himself. He arranged and re-arranged, plunged his hand rapidly into certain mysterious boxes, singing all the time in a voice very out of tune some old French song to enliven the situation.

  Barbicane noticed with interest that his rockets and other fireworks were not damaged. These were important, for, powerfully loaded, they were meant to slacken the speed with which the projectile would, when attracted by the moon after passing the point of neutral attraction, fall upon her surface. This fall besides would be six times less rapid than it would have been upon the surface of the earth, thanks to the difference of volume in the two bodies.

  The inspection ended, therefore, in general satisfaction. Then they all returned to their posts of observation at the lateral and lower port-lights.

  The same spectacle was spread before them. All the extent of the celestial sphere swarmed with stars and constellations of marvellous brilliancy, enough to make an astronomer wild! On one side the sun, like the mouth of a fiery furnace, shone upon the dark background of the heavens. On the other side the moon, reflecting back his fires, seemed motionless amidst the starry world. Then a large spot, like a hole in the firmament, bordered still by a slight thread of silver--it was the earth. Here and there nebulous masses like large snow-flakes, and from zenith to nadir an immense ring, formed of an impalpable dust of stars--that milky way amidst which the sun only counts as a star of the fourth magnitude!

  The spectators could not take their eyes off a spectacle so new, of which no description could give any idea. What reflections it suggested! What unknown emotions it aroused in the soul! Barbicane wished to begin the recital of his journey under the empire of these impressions, and he noted down hourly all the events that signalised the beginning of his enterprise. He wrote tranquilly in his large and rather commercial-looking handwriting.

  During that time the calculating Nicholl looked over the formulae of trajectories, and worked away at figures with unparalleled dexterity. Michel Ardan talked sometimes to Barbicane, who did not answer much, to Nicholl, who did not hear, and to Diana, who did not understand his theories, and lastly to himself, making questions and answers, going and coming, occupying himself with a thousand details, sometimes leaning over the lower port-light, sometimes roosting in the heights of the projectile, singing all the time. In this microcosm he represented the French agitation and loquacity, and it was worthily represented.

  The day, or rather--for the expression is not correct--the lapse of twelve hours which makes a day upon earth--was ended by a copious supper carefully prepared. No incident of a nature to shake the confidence of the travellers had happened, so, full of hope and already sure of success, they went to sleep peacefully, whilst the projectile, at a uniformly increasing speed, made its way in the heavens.

  CHAPTER IV.

  A LITTLE ALGEBRA.

  The night passed without incident. Correctly speaking, the word "night" is an improper one. The position of the projectile in regard to the sun did not change. Astronomically it was day on the bottom of the bullet, and night on the top. When, therefore, in this recital these two words are used they express the lapse of time between the rising and setting of the sun upon earth.

  The travellers' sleep was so much the more peaceful because, notwithstanding its excessive speed, the projectile seemed absolutely motionless. No movement indicated its journey through space. However rapidly change of place may be effected, it cannot produce any sensible effect upon the organism when it takes place in the void, or when the mass of air circulates along with the travelling body. What inhabitant of the earth perceives the speed which carries him along at the rate of 68,000 miles an hour? Movement under such circumstances is not felt more than repose. Every object is indifferent to it. When a body is in repose it remains so until some foreign force puts it in movement. When in movement it would never stop if some obstacle were not in its road. This indifference to movement or repose is inertia.

  Barbicane and his companions could, therefore, imagine themselves absolutely motionless, shut up in the interior of the projectile. The effect would have been the same if they had placed themselves on the outside. Without the moon, which grew larger above them, and the earth that grew smaller below, they would have sworn they were suspended in a complete stagnation.

  That morning, the 3rd of December, they were awakened by a joyful but unexpected noise. It was the crowing of a cock in the interior of their vehicle.

  Michel Ardan was the first to get up; he climbed to the top of the projectile and closed a partly-open case.

  "Be quiet," said he in a whisper. "That animal will spoil my plan!"

  In the meantime Nicholl and Barbicane awoke.

  "Was that a cock?" said Nicholl.

  "No, my friends," answered Michel quickly. "I wished to awake you with that rural sound."

  So saying he gave vent to a cock-a-doodle-do which would have done honour to the proudest of gallinaceans.

  The two Americans could not help laughing.

  "A fine accomplishment that," said Nicholl, looking suspiciously at his companion.

  "Yes," answered Michel, "a joke common in my country. It is very Gallic. We perpetrate it in the best society."

  Then turning the conversation--

  "Barbicane, do you know what I have been thinking about all night?"

  "No," answered
the president.

  "About our friends at Cambridge. You have already remarked how admirably ignorant I am of mathematics. I find it, therefore, impossible to guess how our savants of the observatory could calculate what initial velocity the projectile ought to be endowed with on leaving the Columbiad in order to reach the moon."

  "You mean," replied Barbicane, "in order to reach that neutral point where the terrestrial and lunar attractions are equal; for beyond this point, situated at about 0.9 of the distance, the projectile will fall upon the moon by virtue of its own weight merely."

  "Very well," answered Michel; "but once more; how did they calculate the initial velocity?"

  "Nothing is easier," said Barbicane.

  "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.

  "Ah, that's just like you dealers in x! You think you have explained everything when you have said 'algebra.'"

  "Michel," replied Barbicane, "do you think it possible to forge without a hammer, or to plough without a ploughshare?"

  "It would be difficult."

  "Well, then, algebra is a tool like a plough or a hammer, and a good tool for any one who knows how to use it."

  "Seriously?"

  "Quite."

  "Could you use that tool before me?"

  "If it would interest you."

  "And could you show me how they calculated the initial speed of our vehicle?"

  "Yes, my worthy friend. By taking into account all the elements of the problem, the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon, of the radius of the earth, the volume of the earth and the volume of the moon, I can determine exactly what the initial speed of the projectile ought to be, and that by a very simple formula."

  "Show me the formula."

  "You shall see it. Only I will not give you the curve really traced by the bullet between the earth and the moon, by taking into account their movement of translation round the sun. No. I will consider both bodies to be motionless, and that will be sufficient for us."

  "Why?"

  "Because that would be seeking to solve the problem called 'the problem of the three bodies,' for which the integral calculus is not yet far enough advanced."

  "Indeed," said Michel Ardan in a bantering tone; "then mathematics have not said their last word."

  "Certainly not," answered Barbicane.

  "Good! Perhaps the Selenites have pushed the integral calculus further than you! By-the-bye, what is the integral calculus?"

  "It is the inverse of the differential calculus," answered Barbicane seriously.

  "Much obliged."

  "To speak otherwise, it is a calculus by which you seek finished quantities of what you know the differential quantities."

  "That is clear at least," answered Barbicane with a quite satisfied air.

  "And now," continued Barbicane, "for a piece of paper and a pencil, and in half-an-hour I will have found the required formula."

  That said, Barbicane became absorbed in his work, whilst Nicholl looked into space, leaving the care of preparing breakfast to his companion.

  Half-an-hour had not elapsed before Barbicane, raising his head, showed Michel Ardan a page covered with algebraical signs, amidst which the following general formula was discernible:--

  1 2 2 r m' r r - (v - v ) = gr { --- - 1 + --- ( --- - ---) } 2 0 x m d-x d-r

  "And what does that mean?" asked Michel.

  "That means," answered Nicholl, "that the half of v minus v zero square equals gr multiplied by r upon x minus 1 plus m prime upon m multiplied by r upon d minus x, minus r upon d minus x minus r--"

  "X upon y galloping upon z and rearing upon p" cried Michel Ardan, bursting out laughing. "Do you mean to say you understand that, captain?"

  "Nothing is clearer."

  "Then," said Michel Ardan, "it is as plain as a pikestaff, and I want nothing more."

  "Everlasting laugher," said Barbicane, "you wanted algebra, and now you shall have it over head and ears."

  "I would rather be hung!"

  "That appears a good solution, Barbicane," said Nicholl, who was examining the formula like a connaisseur. "It is the integral of the equation of 'vis viva,' and I do not doubt that it will give us the desired result."

  "But I should like to understand!" exclaimed Michel. "I would give ten years of Nicholl's life to understand!"

  "Then listen," resumed Barbicane. "The half of v minus v zero square is the formula that gives us the demi-variation of the 'vis viva.'"

  "Good; and does Nicholl understand what that means?"

  "Certainly, Michel," answered the captain. "All those signs that look so cabalistic to you form the clearest and most logical language for those who know how to read it."

  "And do you pretend, Nicholl," asked Michel, "that by means of these hieroglyphics, more incomprehensible than the Egyptian ibis, you can find the initial speed necessary to give to the projectile?"

  "Incontestably," answered Nicholl; "and even by that formula I could always tell you what speed it is going at on any point of the journey."

  "Upon your word of honour?"

  "Yes."

  "Then you are as clever as our president."

  "No, Michel, all the difficulty consists in what Barbicane has done. It is to establish an equation which takes into account all the conditions of the problem. The rest is only a question of arithmetic, and requires nothing but a knowledge of the four rules."

  "That's something," answered Michel Ardan, who had never been able to make a correct addition in his life, and who thus defined the rule: "A Chinese puzzle, by which you can obtain infinitely various results."

  Still Barbicane answered that Nicholl would certainly have found the formula had he thought about it.

  "I do not know if I should," said Nicholl, "for the more I study it the more marvellously correct I find it."

  "Now listen," said Barbicane to his ignorant comrade, "and you will see that all these letters have a signification."

  "I am listening," said Michel, looking resigned.

  "d," said Barbicane, "is the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon, for we must take the centres to calculate the attraction."

  "That I understand."

  "r is the radius of the earth."

  "r, radius; admitted."

  "m is the volume of the earth; m prime that of the moon. We are obliged to take into account the volume of the two attracting bodies, as the attraction is in proportion to the volume."

  "I understand that."

  "g represents gravity, the speed acquired at the end of a second by a body falling on the surface of the earth. Is that clear?"

  "A mountain stream!" answered Michel.

  "Now I represent by x the variable distance that separates the projectile from the centre of the earth, and by v the velocity the projectile has at that distance."

  "Good."

  "Lastly, the expression v zero which figures in the equation is the speed the bullet possesses when it emerges from the atmosphere."

  "Yes," said Nicholl, "you were obliged to calculate the velocity from that point, because we knew before that the velocity at departure is exactly equal to 3/2 of the velocity upon emerging from the atmosphere."

  "Don't understand any more!" said Michel.

  "Yet it is very simple," said Barbicane.

  "I do not find it very simple," replied Michel.

  "It means that when our projectile reached the limit of the terrestrial atmosphere it had already lost one-third of its initial velocity."

  "As much as that?"

  "Yes, my friend, simply by friction against the atmosphere. You will easily und
erstand that the greater its speed the more resistance it would meet with from the air."

  "That I admit," answered Michel, "and I understand it, although your v zero two and your v zero square shake about in my head like nails in a sack."

  "First effect of algebra," continued Barbicane. "And now to finish we are going to find the numerical known quantity of these different expressions--that is to say, find out their value."