A Voyage to the Moon

by George Tucker

  CHAPTER IV.

  _Continuation of the voyage--View of Europe; Atlantic Ocean; America--Speculations on the future destiny of the United States--Moral reflections--Pacific Ocean--Hypothesis on the origin of the Moon._

  By this time the whole Mediterranean Sea, which, with the Arabian Gulf,was seen to separate Africa from Europe and Asia, was full in our view.The political divisions of these quarters of the world were, of course,undistinguishable; and few of the natural were discernible by the nakedeye. The Alps were marked by a white streak, though less bright than thewater. By the aid of our glass, we could just discern the Danube, theNile, and a river which empties itself into the Gulf of Guinea, and whichI took to be the Niger: but the other streams were not perceptible. Themost conspicuous object of the solid part of the globe, was the GreatDesert before mentioned. The whole of Africa, indeed, was of a lighter huethan either Asia or Europe, owing, I presume, to its having a greaterproportion of sandy soil: and I could not avoid contrasting, in my mind,the colour of these continents, as they now appeared, with the complexionsof their respective inhabitants.

  I was struck too, with the vast disproportion which the extent of theseveral countries of the earth bore to the part they had acted in history,and the influence they had exerted on human affairs. The British islandshad diminished to a speck, and France was little larger; yet, a fewyears ago it seemed, at least to us in the United States, as if therewere no other nations on the earth. The Brahmin, who was well read inEuropean history, on my making a remark on this subject, reminded me thatAthens and Sparta had once obtained almost equal celebrity, althoughthey were so small as not now to be visible. As I slowly passed thetelescope over the face of Europe, I pictured to myself the fat, ploddingHollander--the patient, contemplative German--the ingenious, sensualItalian--the temperate Swiss--the haughty, superstitious Spaniard--thesprightly, self-complacent Frenchman--the sullen and reflecting Englishman--who monopolize nearly all the science and literature of the earth,to which they bear so small a proportion. As the Atlantic fell under ourview, two faint circles on each side of the equator, were to be perceivedby the naked eye. They were less bright than the rest of the ocean. TheBrahmin suggested that they might be currents; which brought to my memoryDr. Franklin's conjecture on the subject, now completely verified by thiscircular line of vapour, as it had been previously rendered probable bythe floating substances, which had been occasionally picked up, at greatdistances from the places where they had been thrown into the ocean. Thecircle was whiter and more distinct, where the Gulf Stream runs parallelto the American coast, and gradually grew fainter as it passed along theBanks of Newfoundland, to the coast of Europe, where, taking a southerlydirection, the line of the circle was barely discernible. A similar circleof vapour, though less defined and complete, was perceived in the SouthAtlantic Ocean.

  When the coast of my own beloved country first presented itself to myview, I experienced the liveliest emotions; and I felt so anxious to seemy children and friends, that I would gladly have given up all thepromised pleasures of our expedition. I even ventured to hint my feelingsto the Brahmin; but he, gently rebuking my impatience, said--

  "If to return home had been your only object, and not to see what not oneof your nation or race has ever yet seen, you ought to have so informedme, that we might have arranged matters accordingly. I do not wish youto return to your country, until you will be enabled to make yourselfwelcome and useful there, by what you may see in the lunar world. Takecourage, then, my friend; you have passed the worst; and, as the proverbsays, do not, when you have swallowed the ox, now choke at the tail.Besides, although we made all possible haste in descending, we should,ere we reached the surface, find ourselves to the west of your continent,and be compelled then to choose between some part of Asia or the PacificOcean."

  "Let us then proceed," said I, mortified at the imputation on my courage,and influenced yet more, perhaps, by the last argument. The Brahmin thentried to soothe my disappointment, by his remarks on my native land.

  "I have a great curiosity," said he, "to see a country where a man, byhis labour, can earn as much in a month as will procure him bread, andmeat too, for the whole year; in a week, as will pay his dues to thegovernment; and in one or two days, as will buy him an acre of good land:where every man preaches whatever religion he pleases; where the priestsof the different sects never fight, and seldom quarrel; and, strangerthan all, where the authority of government derives no aid from an army,and that of the priests no support from the law."

  I told him, when he should see these things in operation with hisown eyes, as I trusted he would, if it pleased heaven to favour ourundertakings, they would appear less strange. I reminded him of thepeculiar circumstances under which our countrymen had commenced theircareer.

  "In all other countries," said I, "civilization and population havegone hand in hand; and the necessity of an increasing subsistencefor increasing numbers, has been the parent of useful arts and ofsocial improvement. In every successive stage of their advancement,such countries have equally felt the evils occasioned by a scanty andprecarious subsistence. In America, however, the people are in the fullenjoyment of all the arts of civilization, while they are unrestrictedin their means of subsistence, and consequently in their power ofmultiplication. From this singular state of things, two consequencesresult. One is, that the progress of the nation in wealth, power, andgreatness, is more rapid than the world has ever before witnessed.Another is, that our people, being less cramped and fettered by theirnecessities, and feeling, of course, less of those moral evils whichpoverty and discomfort engender, their character, moral and intellectual,will be developed and matured with greater celerity, and, I inclineto think, carried to a higher point of excellence than has ever yetbeen attained. I anticipate for them the eloquence and art of Athens--thecourage and love of country of Sparta--the constancy and military prowessof the Romans--the science and literature of England and France--theindustry of the Dutch--the temperance and obedience to the laws of theSwiss. In fifty years, their numbers will amount to forty millions; ina century, to one hundred and sixty millions; in two centuries, (allowingfor a decreasing rate of multiplication,) to three or four hundredmillions. Nor does it seem impossible that, from the structure of theirgovernment, they may continue united for a few great national purposes,while each State may make the laws that are suited to its peculiar habits,character, and circumstances. In another half century, they will extendthe Christian religion and the English language to the Pacific Ocean.

  "To the south of them, on the same continent, other great nations willarise, who, if they were to be equally united, might contend in terribleconflicts for the mastery of this great continent, and even of the world.But when they shall be completely liberated from the yoke of Spanishdominion, and have for some time enjoyed that full possession of theirfaculties and energies which liberty only can give, they will probablysplit into distinct States. United, at first, by the sympathy of menstruggling in the same cause, and by similarity of manners and religion,they will, after a while, do as men always have done, quarrel and fight;and these wars will check their social improvement, and mar theirpolitical hopes. Whether they will successively fall under the dominionof one able and fortunate leader, or, like the motley sovereignties ofEurope, preserve their integrity by their mutual jealousy, time only canshow."

  "Your reasoning about the natives of Spanish America appears veryprobable," said the Brahmin; "but is it not equally applicable to yourown country ?"

  I reminded him of the peculiar advantages of our government. He shookhis head.

  "No, Atterley," said he, "do not deceive yourself. The duration of everyspecies of polity is uncertain; the works of nature alone are permanent.The motions of the heavenly bodies are the same as they were thousandsof years ago. But not so with the works of man. He is the identical animalthat he ever was. His political institutions, however cunningly devised,have always been yet more perishable than his structures of stone andmarble. This is acco
rding to all past history: and do not, therefore,count upon an exception in your favour, that would be little short ofthe miraculous. But," he good-naturedly added, "such a miracle may takeplace in your system; and, although I do not expect it, I sincerelywish it."

  We were now able to see one half of the broad expanse of the Pacific,which glistened with the brightness of quicksilver or polished steel.

  "Cast your eyes to the north," said he, "and see where your continentand mine approach so near as almost to touch. Both these coasts areat this time thinly inhabited by a rude and miserable people, whosewhole time is spent in struggling against the rigours of their drearyclimate, and the scantiness of its productions. Yet, perhaps the Indiansand the Kamtschadales will be gradually moulded into a hardy, civilizedpeople: and here may be the scene of many a fierce conflict between yourpeople and the Russians, whose numbers, now four times as great as yours,increase almost as rapidly."

  He then amused me with accounts of the manners and mode of life of theHyperborean race, with whom he had once passed a summer. Glancing my eyethen to the south,--"See," said I, "while the Kamtschadale is providinghis supply of furs and of fish, for the long winter which is alreadyknocking at the door of his hut, the gay and voluptuous native of theSandwich and other islands between the tropics. How striking the contrast!The one passes his life in ease, abundance, and enjoyment; the other intoil, privation, and care. No inclemency of the seasons inflicts presentsuffering on these happy islanders, or brings apprehensions for thefuture. Nature presents them with her most delicious fruits spontaneouslyand abundantly; and she has implanted in their breast a lively relish forthe favours she so lavishly bestows upon them."

  The Brahmin, after musing a while, replied: "The difference is far lessthan you imagine. Perhaps, on balancing their respective pleasures andpains, the superior gain of the islander will be reduced to nothing: for,as to the simplest source of gratification, that of palatable food, ifnature produces it more liberally in the islands, she also produces theremore mouths to consume it. The richest Kamtschadale may, indeed, oftenergo without a dinner than the richest Otaheitan; but it may be quite thereverse with the poorest. Then, as to quality of the food: if naturehas provided more delicious fruits for the natives of tropical climates,she has given a sharper appetite and stronger digestion to the Hyperborean,which equalizes the sum of their enjoyments. A dry crust is relished, whenan individual is hungry, more than the most savoury and delicate daintieswhen he is in a fever; and water to one man, is a more delicious beveragethan the juice of the grape or of the palm to another. As to the necessityfor labour, which is ever pressing on the inhabitants of cold countries,it is this consequent and incessant activity which gives health to theirbodies, and cheerful vigour to their minds; since, without such exercise,man would have been ever a prey to disease and discontent. And, if noother occupation be provided for the mind of man, it carves out employmentfor itself in vain regrets and gloomy forebodings--in jealousy, envy, andthe indulgence of every hateful and tormenting passion: hence theproverb,--'If you want corn, cultivate your soil; if you want weeds, letit alone.'

  "But again: the native of those sunny isles is never sensible of thebounty of Providence, till he is deprived of it. Here, as well as everywhere else, desire outgoes gratification. Man sees or fancies much thathe cannot obtain; and in his regret for what he wants, forgets what healready possesses. What is it to one with a tooth-ache, that a savourydish is placed before him? It is the same with the mind as the body: whenpain engrosses it in one way, it cannot relish pleasure in another. Everyclimate and country too, have their own evils and inconveniences."

  "You think, then," said I, "that the native of Kamtschatka has theadvantage?"

  "No," he rejoined, "I do not mean to say that, for the evils of hissituation are likewise very great; but they are more manifest, andtherefore less necessary to be brought to your notice."

  It was now, by our time-pieces, about two o'clock in the afternoon--thatis, two hours had elapsed since we left terra firma; and, saving a fewbiscuits and a glass of cordial a-piece, we had not taken any sort ofrefreshment. The Brahmin proposed that we now should dine; and, openinga small case, and drawing forth a cold fowl, a piece of dried goat'sflesh, a small pot of ghee, some biscuits, and a bottle of arrackflavoured with ginger and spices, with a larger one of water, we ate asheartily as we had ever done at the hermitage; the slight motion of ourmachine to one side or the other, whenever we moved, giving us nearlyas much exercise as a vessel in a smooth sea. The animal food had beenprovided for me, for the Brahmin satisfied his hunger with the ghee,sweetmeats, and biscuit, and ate sparingly even of them. We each tooktwo glasses of the cordial diluted with water, and carefully puttingback the fragments, again turned our thoughts to the planet we had left.

  The middle of the Pacific now lay immediately beneath us. I had neverbefore been struck with the irregular distribution of land and water onour globe, the expanse of ocean here being twice as large as in anyother part; and, on remarking this striking difference to the Brahmin,he replied:

  "It is the opinion of some philosophers in the moon, that their globeis a fragment of ours; and, as they can see every part of the earth'ssurface, they believe the Pacific was the place from which the moon wasejected. They pretend that a short, but consistent tradition of thedisruption, has regularly been transmitted from remote antiquity; andthey draw confirmation of their hypothesis from many words of the Chinese,and other Orientals, with whom they claim affinity."

  "Ridiculous!" said I; "the moon is one-fourth the diameter of the earth;and if the two were united in one sphere, the highest mountains musthave been submerged, and of course there would have been no humaninhabitants; or, if any part of the land was then bare, on the watersretiring to fill up the chasm made by the separation of so large a bodyas the moon, the parts before habitable would be, instead of two, three,or at most four miles, as your Himalah mountains are said to be, sometwenty or thirty miles above the level of the ocean."

  "That is not quite so certain," said he: "we know not of what the interiorof the earth is composed, any more than we could distinguish the contentsof an egg, by penetrating one hundredth part of its shell. But we see,that if one drop of water be united with another, they form one largedrop, as spherical as either of the two which composed it: and on theseparation of the moon from the earth, if they were composed of mingledsolids and fluids, or if the solid parts rested on fluid, both thefragment and the remaining earth would assume the same globular appearancethey now present.

  "On this subject, however, I give no opinion. I only say, that it is notcontradicted by the facts you have mentioned. The fluid and the solidparts settling down into a new sphere, might still retain nearly theirformer proportion: or, if the fragment took away a greater proportionof solid than of fluid, then the waters retiring to fill up the cavity,would leave parts bare which they had formerly covered. There are somefacts which give a colour to this supposition; for most of the highmountains of the earth afford evidence of former submersion; and thosewhich are the highest, the Himalah, are situated in the country to whichthe origin of civilization, and even the human species itself, may betraced. The moon too, we know, has much less water than the earth: andall those appearances of violence, which have so puzzled cosmogonists,the topsy-turvy position in which vegetable substances are occasionallyfound beneath the soil on which they grew, and the clear manifestationsof the action of water, in the formation of strata, in the undulatingforms it has left, and in the correspondent salient and retiring anglesof mountains and opposite coasts, were all caused by the disruption;and as the moon has a smaller proportion of water than the earth, shehas also the highest mountains."

  "But, father," said I, "the diameter of the earth being but four timesas large as that of the moon, how can the violent separation of so largea portion of our planet be accounted for? Where is the mighty agent torend off such a mass, and throw it to thirty times the earth's diameter?"

  "Upon that subject," said he, "the Lu
narian sages are much divided.Many hypotheses have been suggested on the subject, some of which arevery ingenious, and all very fanciful: but the two most celebrated, andinto which all the others are now merged, are those of Neerlego andDarcandarca; the former of whom, in a treatise extending to nine quartovolumes, has maintained that the disruption was caused by a comet; andthe latter, in a work yet more voluminous, has endeavoured to prove, thatwhen the materials of the moon composed a part of the earth, this planetcontained large masses of water, which, though the particles cohered witheach other, were disposed to fly off from the earth; and that, by anaccumulation of the electric fluid, according to laws which he hasattempted to explain, the force was at length sufficient to heave therocks which encompassed these masses, from their beds, and to projectthem from the earth, when, partaking of the earth's diurnal motion, theyassumed a spherical form, and revolved around it. And further, thatbecause the moon is composed of two sorts of matter, that are differentlyaffected towards the earth in its revolution round that planet, the sameparts of its surface always maintain some relative position to us, whichthus necessarily causes the singularity of her turning on her axisprecisely in the time in which she revolves round the earth."

  "I see," said I, "that doctors differ and dispute about their own fanciesevery where."

  "That is," said he, "because they contend as vehemently for what theyimagine as for what they see; and perhaps more so, as their _perceptions_are like those of other men, while their _reveries_ are more exclusivelytheir own. Thus, in the present instance, the controversy turns upon themode in which the separation was effected, which affords the widest fieldfor conjecture, while they both agree that such separation has takenplace. As to this fact I have not yet made up my mind, though it mustbe confessed that there is much to give plausibility to their opinion.I recognise, for instance, a striking resemblance between the animaland vegetable productions of Asia and those of the moon."

  "Do you think, father," said I, "that animal, or even vegetable life,could possibly exist in such a disruption as is supposed?"

  "Why not?" said he: "you are not to imagine that the shock would be feltin proportion to the mass that was moved. On the contrary, while it wouldoccasion, in some parts, a great destruction of life, it would, in others,not be felt more than an earthquake, or rather, than a succession ofearthquakes, during the time that the different parts of the mass wereadjusting themselves to a spherical form; whilst a few pairs, or even asingle pair of animals, saved in some cavity of a mountain, would besufficient, in a few centuries, to stock the whole surface of the earthwith as many individuals as are now to be found on it.

  "After all," he added, "it is often difficult in science to distinguishTruth from the plausibility which personates her. But let us not, however,be precipitate; let us but hear both sides. In the east we have a saying,that 'he who hears with but one ear, never hears well.'"