CHAPTER X
THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON
Barbicane had evidently hit upon the only plausible reasonof this deviation. However slight it might have been, ithad sufficed to modify the course of the projectile. It wasa fatality. The bold attempt had miscarried by a fortuitouscircumstance; and unless by some exceptional event, they couldnow never reach the moon's disc.
Would they pass near enough to be able to solve certain physicaland geological questions until then insoluble? This was thequestion, and the only one, which occupied the minds of thesebold travelers. As to the fate in store for themselves, theydid not even dream of it.
But what would become of them amid these infinite solitudes,these who would soon want air? A few more days, and they wouldfall stifled in this wandering projectile. But some days tothese intrepid fellows was a century; and they devoted all theirtime to observe that moon which they no longer hoped to reach.
The distance which had then separated the projectile from thesatellite was estimated at about two hundred leagues. Under theseconditions, as regards the visibility of the details of the disc,the travelers were farther from the moon than are the inhabitantsof earth with their powerful telescopes.
Indeed, we know that the instrument mounted by Lord Rosse atParsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon towithin an apparent distance of sixteen leagues. And more thanthat, with the powerful one set up at Long's Peak, the orb ofnight, magnified 48,000 times, is brought to within less thantwo leagues, and objects having a diameter of thirty feet areseen very distinctly. So that, at this distance, thetopographical details of the moon, observed without glasses,could not be determined with precision. The eye caught the vastoutline of those immense depressions inappropriately called"seas," but they could not recognize their nature. The prominenceof the mountains disappeared under the splendid irradiationproduced by the reflection of the solar rays. The eye, dazzledas if it was leaning over a bath of molten silver, turned fromit involuntarily; but the oblong form of the orb was quite clear.It appeared like a gigantic egg, with the small end turned towardthe earth. Indeed the moon, liquid and pliable in the first daysof its formation, was originally a perfect sphere; but being soondrawn within the attraction of the earth, it became elongatedunder the influence of gravitation. In becoming a satellite,she lost her native purity of form; her center of gravity was inadvance of the center of her figure; and from this fact somesavants draw the conclusion that the air and water had takenrefuge on the opposite surface of the moon, which is never seenfrom the earth. This alteration in the primitive form of thesatellite was only perceptible for a few moments. The distanceof the projectile from the moon diminished very rapidly underits speed, though that was much less than its initial velocity--but eight or nine times greater than that which propels ourexpress trains. The oblique course of the projectile, from itsvery obliquity, gave Michel Ardan some hopes of striking thelunar disc at some point or other. He could not think that theywould never reach it. No! he could not believe it; and thisopinion he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a betterjudge, always answered him with merciless logic.
"No, Michel, no! We can only reach the moon by a fall, and weare not falling. The centripetal force keeps us under themoon's influence, but the centrifugal force draws usirresistibly away from it."
This was said in a tone which quenched Michel Ardan's last hope.
The portion of the moon which the projectile was nearing was thenorthern hemisphere, that which the selenographic maps placebelow; for these maps are generally drawn after the outlinegiven by the glasses, and we know that they reverse the objects.Such was the _Mappa Selenographica_ of Boeer and Moedler whichBarbicane consulted. This northern hemisphere presented vastplains, dotted with isolated mountains.
At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment thetravelers should have alighted upon it, if the mischievousmeteor had not diverted their course. The orb was exactly inthe condition determined by the Cambridge Observatory. It wasmathematically at its perigee, and at the zenith of thetwenty-eighth parallel. An observer placed at the bottom of theenormous Columbiad, pointed perpendicularly to the horizon,would have framed the moon in the mouth of the gun. A straightline drawn through the axis of the piece would have passedthrough the center of the orb of night. It is needless to say,that during the night of the 5th-6th of December, the travelerstook not an instant's rest. Could they close their eyes when sonear this new world? No! All their feelings were concentratedin one single thought:-- See! Representatives of the earth, ofhumanity, past and present, all centered in them! It is throughtheir eyes that the human race look at these lunar regions, andpenetrate the secrets of their satellite! A strange emotionfilled their hearts as they went from one window to the other.Their observations, reproduced by Barbicane, were rigidly determined.To take them, they had glasses; to correct them, maps.
As regards the optical instruments at their disposal, they hadexcellent marine glasses specially constructed for this journey.They possessed magnifying powers of 100. They would thus havebrought the moon to within a distance (apparent) of less than2,000 leagues from the earth. But then, at a distance which forthree hours in the morning did not exceed sixty-five miles, andin a medium free from all atmospheric disturbances, theseinstruments could reduce the lunar surface to within less than1,500 yards!