<h2 id="sigil_toc_id_79">CHAPTER X.</h2>
<h3 id="sigil_toc_id_80">THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON.</h3>
<p>Barbicane had evidently hit upon the only plausible reason of this
deviation. However slight it might have been, it had sufficed to
modify the course of the projectile. It was a fatality. The bold
attempt had miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance; and unless by
some exceptional event, they could now never reach the moon's
disc.</p>
<p>Would they pass near enough to be able to solve certain physical
and geological questions until then insoluble? This was the question,
and the only one, which occupied the minds of these bold travellers.
As to the fate in store for themselves, they did not even dream of
it.</p>
<p>But what would become of them amid these infinite solitudes, these
who would soon want air? A few more days, and they would fall stifled
in this wandering projectile. But some days to these intrepid fellows
was a century; and they devoted all their time to observe that moon
which they no longer hoped to reach.</p>
<p>The distance which then separated the projectile from the
satellite was estimated at about 200 leagues. Under these conditions,
as regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travellers
were farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of the earth with
their powerful telescopes.</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: THE TELESCOPE AT PARSONTOWN." id="the_telescope_at_parsontown" src=
"images/the_telescope_at_parsontown.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">THE TELESCOPE AT PARSONTOWN.</div>
<p>Indeed, we know that the instrument mounted by Lord Rosse at
Parsonstown, which magnifies 6500 times, brings the moon to within an
apparent distance of sixteen leagues. And more than that, with the
powerful one set up at Long's Peak, the orb of night, magnified
48,000 times, is brought to within less than two leagues, and objects
having a diameter of thirty feet are seen very distinctly. So that,
at this distance, the topographical details of the moon, observed
without glasses, could not be determined with precision. The eye
caught the vast outline of those immense depressions inappropriately
called "seas," but they could not recognize their nature. The
prominence of the mountains disappeared under the splendid
irradiation produced by the reflection of the solar rays. The eye,
dazzled as if it was leaning over a bath of molten silver, turned
from it involuntarily; but the oblong form of the orb was quite
clear. It appeared like a gigantic egg, with the small end turned
towards the earth. Indeed the moon, liquid and pliable in the first
days of its formation, was originally a perfect sphere; but being
soon drawn within the attraction of the earth, it became elongated
under the influence of gravitation. In becoming a satellite, she lost
her native purity of form; her centre of gravity was in advance of
the centre of her figure; and from this fact some savants draw the
conclusion that the air and water had taken refuge on the opposite
surface of the moon, which is never seen from the earth. This
alteration in the primitive form of the satellite was only
perceptible for a few moments. The distance of the projectile from
the moon diminished very rapidly under its speed, though that was
much less than its initial velocity,—but eight or nine times greater
than that which propels our express trains. The oblique course of the
projectile, from its very obliquity, gave Michel Ardan some hopes of
striking the lunar disc at some point or other. He could not think
that they would never reach it. No! he could not believe it; and this
opinion he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a better judge,
always answered him with merciless logic.</p>
<p>"No, Michel, no! We can only reach the moon by a fall, and we are
not falling. The centripetal force keeps us under the moon's
influence, but the centrifugal force draws us irresistibly away from
it."</p>
<p>This was said in a tone which quenched Michel Ardan's last
hope.</p>
<p>The portion of the moon which the projectile was nearing was the
northern hemisphere, that which the Selenographic maps place below;
for these maps are generally drawn after the outline given by the
glasses, and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the
<i>Mappa Selenographica</i> of Bœer and Moedler which Barbicane
consulted. This northern hemisphere presented vast plains, dotted
with isolated mountains.</p>
<p>At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment the
travellers should have alighted upon it, if the mischievous meteor
had not diverted their course. The orb was exactly in the condition
determined by the Cambridge Observatory. It was mathematically at its
perigee, and at the zenith of the twenty-eighth parallel. An observer
placed at the bottom of the enormous Columbiad, pointed
perpendicularly to the horizon, would have framed the moon in the
mouth of the gun. A straight line drawn through the axis of the piece
would have passed through the centre of the orb of night. It is
needless to say, that during the night of the 5th—6th of December,
the travellers took not an instant's rest. Could they close their
eyes when so near this new world? No! All their feelings were
concentrated in one single thought:—See! Representatives of the
earth, of humanity, past and present, all centred in them! It is
through their eyes that the human race look at these lunar regions,
and penetrate the secrets of their satellite! A strange emotion
filled their hearts as they went from one window to the other.</p>
<p>Their observations, reproduced by Barbicane, were rigidly
determined. To take them, they had glasses; to correct them,
maps.</p>
<p>As regards the optical instruments at their disposal, they had
excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this journey.</p>
<p>They possessed magnifying powers of 100. They would thus have
brought the moon to within a distance (apparent) of less than 2000
leagues from the earth. But then, at a distance which for three hours
in the morning did not exceed sixty-five miles, and in a medium free
from all atmospheric disturbances, these instruments could reduce the
lunar surface to within less than 1500 yards!</p>
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