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Chapter XV. Hyperbola or Parabola
We may, perhaps, be astonished to find Barbicane and his
companions so little occupied with the future reserved for them in
their metal prison which was bearing them through the infinity of
space. Instead of asking where they were going, they passed their
time making experiments, as if they had been quietly installed in
their own study.
We might answer that men so strong-minded were above such
anxieties— that they did not trouble themselves about such
trifles— and that they had something else to do than to
occupy their minds with the future.
The truth was that they were not masters of their projectile;
they could neither check its course, nor alter its direction.
A sailor can change the head of his ship as he pleases; an
aeronaut can give a vertical motion to his balloon. They, on the
contrary, had no power over their vehicle. Every maneuver was
forbidden. Hence the inclination to let things alone, or as the
sailors say, “let her run.”
Where did they find themselves at this moment, at eight
o’clock in the morning of the day called upon the earth the
6th of December? Very certainly in the neighborhood of the moon,
and even near enough for her to look to them like an enormous black
screen upon the firmament. As to the distance which separated them,
it was impossible to estimate it. The projectile, held by some
unaccountable force, had been within four miles of grazing the
satellite’s north pole.
But since entering the cone of shadow these last two hours, had
the distance increased or diminished? Every point of mark was
wanting by which to estimate both the direction and the speed of
the projectile.
Perhaps it was rapidly leaving the disc, so that it would soon
quit the pure shadow. Perhaps, again, on the other hand, it might
be nearing it so much that in a short time it might strike some
high point on the invisible hemisphere, which would doubtlessly
have ended the journey much to the detriment of the travelers.
A discussion arose on this subject, and Michel Ardan, always
ready with an explanation, gave it as his opinion that the
projectile, held by the lunar attraction, would end by falling on
the surface of the terrestrial globe like an aerolite.
“First of all, my friend,” answered Barbicane,
“every aerolite does not fall to the earth; it is only a
small proportion which do so; and if we had passed into an
aerolite, it does not necessarily follow that we should ever reach
the surface of the moon.”
“But how if we get near enough?” replied Michel.
“Pure mistake,” replied Barbicane. “Have you
not seen shooting stars rush through the sky by thousands at
certain seasons?”
“Yes.”
“Well, these stars, or rather corpuscles, only shine when
they are heated by gliding over the atmospheric layers. Now, if
they enter the atmosphere, they pass at least within forty miles of
the earth, but they seldom fall upon it. The same with our
projectile. It may approach very near to the moon, and not yet fall
upon it.”
“But then,” asked Michel, “I shall be curious
to know how our erring vehicle will act in space?”
“I see but two hypotheses,” replied Barbicane, after
some moments’ reflection.
“What are they?”
“The projectile has the choice between two mathematical
curves, and it will follow one or the other according to the speed
with which it is animated, and which at this moment I cannot
estimate.”
“Yes,” said Nicholl, “it will follow either a
parabola or a hyperbola.”
“Just so,” replied Barbicane. “With a certain
speed it will assume the parabola, and with a greater the
hyperbola.”
“I like those grand words,” exclaimed Michel Ardan;
“one knows directly what they mean. And pray what is your
parabola, if you please?”
“My friend,” answered the captain, “the
parabola is a curve of the second order, the result of the section
of a cone intersected by a plane parallel to one of the
sides.”
“Ah! ah!” said Michel, in a satisfied tone.
“It is very nearly,” continued Nicholl, “the
course described by a bomb launched from a mortar.”
“Perfect! And the hyperbola?”
“The hyperbola, Michel, is a curve of the second order,
produced by the intersection of a conic surface and a plane
parallel to its axis, and constitutes two branches separated one
from the other, both tending indefinitely in the two
directions.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Michel Ardan in a
serious tone, as if they had told him of some serious event.
“What I particularly like in your definition of the hyperbola
(I was going to say hyperblague) is that it is still more obscure
than the word you pretend to define.”
Nicholl and Barbicane cared little for Michel Ardan’s fun.
They were deep in a scientific discussion. What curve would the
projectile follow? was their hobby. One maintained the hyperbola,
the other the parabola. They gave each other reasons bristling with
x. Their arguments were couched in language which made Michel jump.
The discussion was hot, and neither would give up his chosen curve
to his adversary.
This scientific dispute lasted so long that it made Michel very
impatient.
“Now, gentlemen cosines, will you cease to throw parabolas
and hyperbolas at each other’s heads? I want to understand
the only interesting question in the whole affair. We shall follow
one or the other of these curves? Good. But where will they lead us
to?”
“Nowhere,” replied Nicholl.
“How, nowhere?”
“Evidently,” said Barbicane, “they are open
curves, which may be prolonged indefinitely.”
“Ah, savants!” cried Michel; “and what are
either the one or the other to us from the moment we know that they
equally lead us into infinite space?”
Barbicane and Nicholl could not forbear smiling. They had just
been creating “art for art’s sake.” Never had so
idle a question been raised at such an inopportune moment. The
sinister truth remained that, whether hyperbolically or
parabolically borne away, the projectile would never again meet
either the earth or the moon.
What would become of these bold travelers in the immediate
future? If they did not die of hunger, if they did not die of
thirst, in some days, when the gas failed, they would die from want
of air, unless the cold had killed them first. Still, important as
it was to economize the gas, the excessive lowness of the
surrounding temperature obliged them to consume a certain quantity.
Strictly speaking, they could do without its light, but not without
its heat. Fortunately the caloric generated by Reiset’s and
Regnaut’s apparatus raised the temperature of the interior of
the projectile a little, and without much expenditure they were
able to keep it bearable.
But observations had now become very difficult. the dampness of
the projectile was condensed on the windows and congealed
immediately. This cloudiness had to be dispersed continually. In
any case they might hope to be able to discover some phenomena of
the highest interest.
But up to this time the disc remained dumb and dark. It did not
answer the multiplicity of questions put by these ardent minds; a
matter which drew this reflection from Michel, apparently a just
one:
“If ever we begin this journey over again, we shall do
well to choose the time when the moon is at the full.”
“Certainly,” said Nicholl, “that circumstance
will be more favorable. I allow that the moon, immersed in the
sun’s rays, will not be visible during the transit, but
instead we should see the earth, which would be full. And what is
more, if we were drawn round the moon, as at this moment, we should
at least have the advantage of seeing the invisible part of her
disc magnificently lit.”
“Well said, Nicholl,” replied Michel Ardan.
“What do you think, Barbicane?”
“I think this,” answered the grave president:
“If ever we begin this journey again, we shall start at the
same time and under the same conditions. Suppose we had attained
our end, would it not have been better to have found continents in
broad daylight than a country plunged in utter darkness? Would not
our first installation have been made under better circumstances?
Yes, evidently. As to the invisible side, we could have visited it
in our exploring expeditions on the lunar globe. So that the time
of the full moon was well chosen. But we ought to have arrived at
the end; and in order to have so arrived, we ought to have suffered
no deviation on the road.”
“I have nothing to say to that,” answered Michel
Ardan. “Here is, however, a good opportunity lost of
observing the other side of the moon.”
But the projectile was now describing in the shadow that
incalculable course which no sight-mark would allow them to
ascertain. Had its direction been altered, either by the influence
of the lunar attraction, or by the action of some unknown star?
Barbicane could not say. But a change had taken place in the
relative position of the vehicle; and Barbicane verified it about
four in the morning.
The change consisted in this, that the base of the projectile
had turned toward the moon’s surface, and was so held by a
perpendicular passing through its axis. The attraction, that is to
say the weight, had brought about this alteration. The heaviest
part of the projectile inclined toward the invisible disc as if it
would fall upon it.
Was it falling? Were the travelers attaining that much desired
end? No. And the observation of a sign-point, quite inexplicable in
itself, showed Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing the
moon, and that it had shifted by following an almost concentric
curve.
This point of mark was a luminous brightness, which Nicholl
sighted suddenly, on the limit of the horizon formed by the black
disc. This point could not be confounded with a star. It was a
reddish incandescence which increased by degrees, a decided proof
that the projectile was shifting toward it and not falling normally
on the surface of the moon.
“A volcano! it is a volcano in action!” cried
Nicholl; “a disemboweling of the interior fires of the moon!
That world is not quite extinguished.”
“Yes, an eruption,” replied Barbicane, who was
carefully studying the phenomenon through his night glass.
“What should it be, if not a volcano?”
“But, then,” said Michel Ardan, “in order to
maintain that combustion, there must be air. So the atmosphere does
surround that part of the moon.”
“Perhaps so,” replied Barbicane, “but not
necessarily.
The volcano, by the decomposition of certain substances, can
provide its own oxygen, and thus throw flames into space. It seems
to me that the deflagration, by the intense brilliancy of the
substances in combustion, is produced in pure oxygen. We must not
be in a hurry to proclaim the existence of a lunar
atmosphere.”
The fiery mountain must have been situated about the 45° south latitude on the invisible part of the disc; but,
to Barbicane’s great displeasure, the curve which the
projectile was describing was taking it far from the point
indicated by the eruption. Thus he could not determine its nature
exactly. Half an hour after being sighted, this luminous point had
disappeared behind the dark horizon; but the verification of this
phenomenon was of considerable consequence in their selenographic
studies. It proved that all heat had not yet disappeared from the
bowels of this globe; and where heat exists, who can affirm that
the vegetable kingdom, nay, even the animal kingdom itself, has not
up to this time resisted all destructive influences? The existence
of this volcano in eruption, unmistakably seen by these earthly
savants, would doubtless give rise to many theories favorable to
the grave question of the habitability of the moon.
Barbicane allowed himself to be carried away by these
reflections. He forgot himself in a deep reverie in which the
mysterious destiny of the lunar world was uppermost. He was seeking
to combine together the facts observed up to that time, when a new
incident recalled him briskly to reality. This incident was more
than a cosmical phenomenon; it was a threatened danger, the
consequence of which might be disastrous in the extreme.
Suddenly, in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness,
an enormous mass appeared. It was like a moon, but an incandescent
moon whose brilliancy was all the more intolerable as it cut
sharply on the frightful darkness of space. This mass, of a
circular form, threw a light which filled the projectile. The forms
of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan, bathed in its white
sheets, assumed that livid spectral appearance which physicians
produce with the fictitious light of alcohol impregnated with
salt.
“By Jove!” cried Michel Ardan, “we are
hideous. What is that ill-conditioned moon?”
“A meteor,” replied Barbicane.
“A meteor burning in space?”
“Yes.”
This shooting globe suddenly appearing in shadow at a distance
of at most 200 miles, ought, according to Barbicane, to have a
diameter of 2,000 yards. It advanced at a speed of about one mile
and a half per second. It cut the projectile’s path and must
reach it in some minutes. As it approached it grew to enormous
proportions.
Imagine, if possible, the situation of the travelers! It is
impossible to describe it. In spite of their courage, their
sang-froid, their carelessness of danger, they were mute,
motionless with stiffened limbs, a prey to frightful terror. Their
projectile, the course of which they could not alter, was rushing
straight on this ignited mass, more intense than the open mouth of
an oven. It seemed as though they were being precipitated toward an
abyss of fire.
Barbicane had seized the hands of his two companions, and all
three looked through their half-open eyelids upon that asteroid
heated to a white heat. If thought was not destroyed within them,
if their brains still worked amid all this awe, they must have
given themselves up for lost.
Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the meteor (to them
two centuries of anguish) the projectile seemed almost about to
strike it, when the globe of fire burst like a bomb, but without
making any noise in that void where sound, which is but the
agitation of the layers of air, could not be generated.
Nicholl uttered a cry, and he and his companions rushed to the
scuttle. What a sight! What pen can describe it? What palette is
rich enough in colors to reproduce so magnificent a spectacle?
It was like the opening of a crater, like the scattering of an
immense conflagration. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up and
irradiated space with their fires. Every size, every color, was
there intermingled. There were rays of yellow and pale yellow, red,
green, gray— a crown of fireworks of all colors. Of the
enormous and much-dreaded globe there remained nothing but these
fragments carried in all directions, now become asteroids in their
turn, some flaming like a sword, some surrounded by a whitish
cloud, and others leaving behind them trains of brilliant cosmical
dust.
These incandescent blocks crossed and struck each other,
scattering still smaller fragments, some of which struck the
projectile. Its left scuttle was even cracked by a violent shock.
It seemed to be floating amid a hail of howitzer shells, the
smallest of which might destroy it instantly.
The light which saturated the ether was so wonderfully intense,
that Michel, drawing Barbicane and Nicholl to his window,
exclaimed, “The invisible moon, visible at last!”
And through a luminous emanation, which lasted some seconds, the
whole three caught a glimpse of that mysterious disc which the eye
of man now saw for the first time. What could they distinguish at a
distance which they could not estimate? Some lengthened bands along
the disc, real clouds formed in the midst of a very confined
atmosphere, from which emerged not only all the mountains, but also
projections of less importance; its circles, its yawning craters,
as capriciously placed as on the visible surface. Then immense
spaces, no longer arid plains, but real seas, oceans, widely
distributed, reflecting on their liquid surface all the dazzling
magic of the fires of space; and, lastly, on the surface of the
continents, large dark masses, looking like immense forests under
the rapid illumination of a brilliance.
Was it an illusion, a mistake, an optical illusion? Could they
give a scientific assent to an observation so superficially
obtained? Dared they pronounce upon the question of its
habitability after so slight a glimpse of the invisible disc?
But the lightnings in space subsided by degrees; its accidental
brilliancy died away; the asteroids dispersed in different
directions and were extinguished in the distance.
The ether returned to its accustomed darkness; the stars,
eclipsed for a moment, again twinkled in the firmament, and the
disc, so hastily discerned, was again buried in impenetrable
night.
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