Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  moment. The revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an

  easy and gradual manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I even

  been awake at the time of the occurrence, I should have been made

  aware of it by any internal evidence of an inversion -- that is to

  say, by any inconvenience or disarrangement, either about my person

  or about my apparatus.

  "It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of my

  situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed every

  faculty of my soul, my attention was, in the first place, wholly

  directed to the contemplation of the general physical appearance of

  the moon. It lay beneath me like a chart -- and although I judged it

  to be still at no inconsiderable distance, the indentures of its

  surface were defined to my vision with a most striking and altogether

  unaccountable distinctness. The entire absence of ocean or sea, and

  indeed of any lake or river, or body of water whatsoever, struck me,

  at first glance, as the most extraordinary feature in its geological

  condition. Yet, strange to say, I beheld vast level regions of a

  character decidedly alluvial, although by far the greater portion of

  the hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic

  mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of

  artificial than of natural protuberance. The highest among them does

  not exceed three and three-quarter miles in perpendicular elevation;

  but a map of the volcanic districts of the Campi Phlegraei would

  afford to your Excellencies a better idea of their general surface

  than any unworthy description I might think proper to attempt. The

  greater part of them were in a state of evident eruption, and gave me

  fearfully to understand their fury and their power, by the repeated

  thunders of the miscalled meteoric stones, which now rushed upward by

  the balloon with a frequency more and more appalling.

  "April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's

  apparent bulk -- and the evidently accelerated velocity of my descent

  began to fill me with alarm. It will be remembered, that, in the

  earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of a passage

  to the moon, the existence, in its vicinity, of an atmosphere, dense

  in proportion to the bulk of the planet, had entered largely into my

  calculations; this too in spite of many theories to the contrary,

  and, it may be added, in spite of a general disbelief in the

  existence of any lunar atmosphere at all. But, in addition to what I

  have already urged in regard to Encke's comet and the zodiacal light,

  I had been strengthened in my opinion by certain observations of Mr.

  Schroeter, of Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a

  half old, in the evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was

  visible, and continued to watch it until it became visible. The two

  cusps appeared tapering in a very sharp faint prolongation, each

  exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly illuminated by the solar

  rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was visible. Soon

  afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This prolongation

  of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must have arisen from

  the refraction of the sun's rays by the moon's atmosphere. I

  computed, also, the height of the atmosphere (which could refract

  light enough into its dark hemisphere to produce a twilight more

  luminous than the light reflected from the earth when the moon is

  about 32 degrees from the new) to be 1,356 Paris feet; in this view,

  I supposed the greatest height capable of refracting the solar ray,

  to be 5,376 feet. My ideas on this topic had also received

  confirmation by a passage in the eighty-second volume of the

  Philosophical Transactions, in which it is stated that at an

  occultation of Jupiter's satellites, the third disappeared after

  having been about 1" or 2" of time indistinct, and the fourth became

  indiscernible near the limb.{*4}

  "Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars,

  when approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular

  figure changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he found

  no alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed, that at

  some times and not at others, there is a dense matter encompassing

  the moon wherein the rays of the stars are refracted.

  "Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an

  atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of

  course, entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent.

  Should I then, after all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in

  consequence nothing better to expect, as a finale to my adventure,

  than being dashed into atoms against the rugged surface of the

  satellite. And, indeed, I had now every reason to be terrified. My

  distance from the moon was comparatively trifling, while the labor

  required by the condenser was diminished not at all, and I could

  discover no indication whatever of a decreasing rarity in the air.

  "April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the

  surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my apprehensions

  excited to the utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave

  evident tokens of an alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had

  reason to believe its density considerably increased. By eleven, very

  little labor was necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o'clock,

  with some hesitation, I ventured to unscrew the tourniquet, when,

  finding no inconvenience from having done so, I finally threw open

  the gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it from around the car. As

  might have been expected, spasms and violent headache were the

  immediate consequences of an experiment so precipitate and full of

  danger. But these and other difficulties attending respiration, as

  they were by no means so great as to put me in peril of my life, I

  determined to endure as I best could, in consideration of my leaving

  them behind me momently in my approach to the denser strata near the

  moon. This approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme; and

  it soon became alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not

  been deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in proportion

  to the mass of the satellite, still I had been wrong in supposing

  this density, even at the surface, at all adequate to the support of

  the great weight contained in the car of my balloon. Yet this should

  have been the case, and in an equal degree as at the surface of the

  earth, the actual gravity of bodies at either planet supposed in the

  ratio of the atmospheric condensation. That it was not the case,

  however, my precipitous downfall gave testimony enough; why it was

  not so, can only be explained by a reference to those possible

  geological disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all

  events I was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the most

  terrible impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing

  overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing

>   apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within

  the car. But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible

  rapidity, and was now not more than half a mile from the surface. As

  a last resource, therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and

  boots, I cut loose from the balloon the car itself, which was of no

  inconsiderable weight, and thus, clinging with both hands to the

  net-work, I had barely time to observe that the whole country, as far

  as the eye could reach, was thickly interspersed with diminutive

  habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the very heart of a

  fantastical-looking city, and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly

  little people, who none of them uttered a single syllable, or gave

  themselves the least trouble to render me assistance, but stood, like

  a parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me and

  my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo. I turned from them in

  contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth so lately left, and left

  perhaps for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull, copper shield, about

  two degrees in diameter, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead, and

  tipped on one of its edges with a crescent border of the most

  brilliant gold. No traces of land or water could be discovered, and

  the whole was clouded with variable spots, and belted with tropical

  and equatorial zones.

  "Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great

  anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had, at

  length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam, arrived

  in safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the most

  extraordinary, and the most momentous, ever accomplished, undertaken,

  or conceived by any denizen of earth. But my adventures yet remain to

  be related. And indeed your Excellencies may well imagine that, after

  a residence of five years upon a planet not only deeply interesting

  in its own peculiar character, but rendered doubly so by its intimate

  connection, in capacity of satellite, with the world inhabited by

  man, I may have intelligence for the private ear of the States'

  College of Astronomers of far more importance than the details,

  however wonderful, of the mere voyage which so happily concluded.

  This is, in fact, the case. I have much -- very much which it would

  give me the greatest pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of

  the climate of the planet; of its wonderful alternations of heat and

  cold, of unmitigated and burning sunshine for one fortnight, and more

  than polar frigidity for the next; of a constant transfer of

  moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo, from the point beneath

  the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a variable zone of

  running water, of the people themselves; of their manners, customs,

  and political institutions; of their peculiar physical construction;

  of their ugliness; of their want of ears, those useless appendages in

  an atmosphere so peculiarly modified; of their consequent ignorance

  of the use and properties of speech; of their substitute for speech

  in a singular method of inter-communication; of the incomprehensible

  connection between each particular individual in the moon with some

  particular individual on the earth -- a connection analogous with,

  and depending upon, that of the orbs of the planet and the

  satellites, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the

  inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and destinies of

  the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it so please your

  Excellencies -- above all, of those dark and hideous mysteries which

  lie in the outer regions of the moon -- regions which, owing to the

  almost miraculous accordance of the satellite's rotation on its own

  axis with its sidereal revolution about the earth, have never yet

  been turned, and, by God's mercy, never shall be turned, to the

  scrutiny of the telescopes of man. All this, and more- much more --

  would I most willingly detail. But, to be brief, I must have my

  reward. I am pining for a return to my family and to my home, and as

  the price of any farther communication on my part -- in consideration

  of the light which I have it in my power to throw upon many very

  important branches of physical and metaphysical science -- I must

  solicit, through the influence of your honorable body, a pardon for

  the crime of which I have been guilty in the death of the creditors

  upon my departure from Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the

  present paper. Its bearer, an inhabitant of the moon, whom I have

  prevailed upon, and properly instructed, to be my messenger to the

  earth, will await your Excellencies' pleasure, and return to me with

  the pardon in question, if it can, in any manner, be obtained.

  "I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies' very humble

  servant,

  HANS PFAALL."

  Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,

  Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground in

  the extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk

  having taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and deposited them in

  his pocket, so far forgot both himself and his dignity, as to turn

  round three times upon his heel in the quintessence of astonishment

  and admiration. There was no doubt about the matter -- the pardon

  should be obtained. So at least swore, with a round oath, Professor

  Rub-a-dub, and so finally thought the illustrious Von Underduk, as he

  took the arm of his brother in science, and without saying a word,

  began to make the best of his way home to deliberate upon the

  measures to be adopted. Having reached the door, however, of the

  burgomaster's dwelling, the professor ventured to suggest that as the

  messenger had thought proper to disappear -- no doubt frightened to

  death by the savage appearance of the burghers of Rotterdam -- the

  pardon would be of little use, as no one but a man of the moon would

  undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of this

  observation the burgomaster assented, and the matter was therefore at

  an end. Not so, however, rumors and speculations. The letter, having

  been published, gave rise to a variety of gossip and opinion. Some of

  the over-wise even made themselves ridiculous by decrying the whole

  business; as nothing better than a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of

  people, is, I believe, a general term for all matters above their

  comprehension. For my part, I cannot conceive upon what data they

  have founded such an accusation. Let us see what they say:

  Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial

  antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.

  Don't understand at all.

  Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of whose

  ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his head, has

  been missing for several days from the neighboring city of Bruges.

  Well -- what of that?

  Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little

  balloon were newspapers of Holland, and there
fore could not have been

  made in the moon. They were dirty papers -- very dirty -- and Gluck,

  the printer, would take his Bible oath to their having been printed

  in Rotterdam.

  He was mistaken -- undoubtedly -- mistaken.

  Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the druken villain, and the three

  very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no longer

  than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs,

  having just returned, with money in their pockets, from a trip beyond

  the sea.

  Don't believe it -- don't believe a word of it.

  Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which ought

  to be generally received, that the College of Astronomers in the city

  of Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other parts of the

  world, -- not to mention colleges and astronomers in general, -- are,

  to say the least of the matter, not a whit better, nor greater, nor

  wiser than they ought to be.

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  Notes to Hans Pfaal

  {*1} NOTE--Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity between

  the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated "Moon-Story" of Mr.

  Locke; but as both have the character of _hoaxes _(although the one

  is in a tone of banter, the other of downright earnest), and as both

  hoaxes are on the same subject, the moon--moreover, as both attempt

  to give plausibility by scientific detail--the author of "Hans

  Pfaall" thinks it necessary to say, in _self-defence, _that his own

  _jeu d'esprit _was published in the "Southern Literary Messenger"

  about three weeks before the commencement of Mr. L's in the "New York

  Sun." Fancying a likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some of the

  New York papers copied "Hans Pfaall," and collated it with the

  "Moon-Hoax," by way of detecting the writer of the one in the writer

  of the other.

  As many more persons were actually gulled by the "Moon-Hoax" than

  would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some

  little amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to