Emotion was great on board the Susquehanna. Officers and sailors forgot the terrible danger they had just been in—the danger of being crushed and sunk. They only thought of the catastrophe which terminated the journey. Thus, therefore, the moat audacious enterprise of ancient and modern times lost the life of the bold adventurers who had attempted it.
"It is 'they' come back," the young midshipman had said, and they had all understood. No one doubted that the bolis was the projectile of the Gun Club. Opinions were divided about the fate of the travellers.
"They are dead!" said one.
"They are alive," answered the other. "The water is deep here, and the shock has been deadened."
"But they will have no air, and will die suffocated!"
"Burnt!" answered the other. "Their projectile was only an incandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere."
"What does it matter?" was answered unanimously, "living or dead they must be brought up from there."
Meanwhile Captain Blomsberry had called his officers together, and with their permission he held a council. Something must be done immediately. The most immediate was to haul up the projectile—a difficult operation, but not an impossible one. But the corvette wanted the necessary engines, which would have to be powerful and precise. It was, therefore, resolved to put into the nearest port, and to send word to the Gun Club about the fall of the bullet.
This determination was taken unanimously. The choice of a port was discussed. The neighbouring coast had no harbour on the 27th degree of latitude. Higher up, above the peninsula of Monterey, was the important town which has given its name to it. But, seated on the confines of a veritable desert, it had no telegraphic communication with the interior, and electricity alone could spread the important news quickly enough.
Some degrees above lay the bay of San Francisco. Through the capital of the Gold Country communication with the centre of the Union would be easy. By putting all steam on, the Susquehanna, in less than two days, could reach the port of San Francisco. She must, therefore, start at once.
The fires were heaped up, and they could set sail immediately. Two thousand fathoms of sounding still remained in the water. Captain Blomsberry would not lose precious time in hauling it in, and resolved to cut the line.
"We will fix the end to a buoy," said he, "and the buoy will indicate the exact point where the projectile fell."
"Besides," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, "we have our exact bearings: north lat. 27° 7', and west long. 41° 37'."
"Very well, Mr. Bronsfield," answered the captain; "with your permission, have the line cut."
A strong buoy, reinforced by a couple of spars, was thrown out on to the surface of the ocean. The end of the line was solidly struck beneath, and only submitted to the ebb and flow of the surges, so that it would not drift much.
At that moment the engineer came to warn the captain that he had put the pressure on, and they could start. The captain thanked him for his excellent communication. Then he gave N.N.E. as the route. The corvette was put about, and made for the bay of San Francisco with all steam on. It was then 3 a.m.
Two hundred leagues to get over was not much for a quick vessel like theSusquehanna. It got over that distance in thirty-six hours, and on the14th of December, at 1.27 p.m., she would enter the bay of SanFrancisco.
At the sight of this vessel of the national navy arriving with all speed on, her bowsprit gone, and her mainmast propped up, public curiosity was singularly excited. A compact crowd was soon assembled on the quays awaiting the landing.
After weighing anchor Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant Bronsfield got down into an eight-oared boat which carried them rapidly to the land.
They jumped out on the quay.
"The telegraph-office?" they asked, without answering one of the thousand questions that were showered upon them.
The port inspector guided them himself to the telegraph-office, amidst an immense crowd of curious people.
Blomsberry and Bronsfield went into the office whilst the crowd crushed against the door.
A few minutes later one message was sent in four differentdirections:—1st, to the Secretary of the Navy, Washington; 2nd, to theVice-President of the Gun Club, Baltimore; 3rd, to the Honourable J.T.Maston, Long's Peak, Rocky Mountains; 4th, to the Sub-Director of theCambridge Observatory, Massachusetts.
It ran as follows:—
"In north lat. 20° 7', and west long. 41° 37', the projectile of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific, on December 12th, at 1.17 am. Send instructions.—BLOMSBERRY, Commander Susquehanna."
Five minutes afterwards the whole town of San Francisco knew the tidings. Before 6 p.m. the different States of the Union had intelligence of the supreme catastrophe. After midnight, through the cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the great American enterprise.
It would be impossible to describe the effect produced throughout the world by the unexpected news.
On receipt of the telegram the Secretary of the Navy telegraphed to theSusquehanna to keep under fire, and wait in the bay of San Francisco.She was to be ready to set sail day or night.
The Observatory of Cambridge had an extraordinary meeting, and, with the serenity which distinguishes scientific bodies, it peacefully discussed the scientific part of the question.
At the Gun Club there was an explosion. All the artillerymen were assembled. The Vice-President, the Honourable Wilcome, was just reading the premature telegram by which Messrs. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just been perceived in the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak. This communication informed them also that the bullet, retained by the attraction of the moon, was playing the part of sub-satellite in the solar world.
The truth on this subject is now known.
However, upon the arrival of Blomsberry's message, which so formally contradicted J.T. Maston's telegram, two parties were formed in the bosom of the Gun Club. On the one side were members who admitted the fall of the projectile, and consequently the return of the travellers. On the other were those who, holding by the observations at Long's Peak, concluded that the commander of the Susquehanna was mistaken. According to the latter, the pretended projectile was only a bolis, nothing but a bolis, a shooting star, which in its fall had fractured the corvette. Their argument could not very well be answered, because the velocity with which it was endowed had made its observation very difficult. The commander of the Susquehanna and his officers might certainly have been mistaken in good faith. One argument certainly was in their favour: if the projectile had fallen on the earth it must have touched the terrestrial spheroid upon the 27th degree of north latitude, and, taking into account the time that had elapsed, and the earth's movement of rotation, between the 41st and 42nd degree of west longitude.
However that might be, it was unanimously decided in the Gun Club that Blomsberry's brother Bilsby and Major Elphinstone should start at once for San Francisco and give their advice about the means of dragging up the projectile from the depths of the ocean.
These men started without losing an instant, and the railway which was soon to cross the whole of Central America took them to St. Louis, where rapid mail-coaches awaited them.
Almost at the same moment that the Secretary of the Navy, the Vice-President of the Gun Club, and the Sub-Director of the Observatory received the telegram from San Francisco, the Honourable J.T. Maston felt the most violent emotion of his whole existence—an emotion not even equalled by that he had experienced when his celebrated cannon was blown up, and which, like it, nearly cost him his life.
It will be remembered that the Secretary of the Gun Club had started some minutes after the projectile—and almost as quickly—for the station of Long's Peak in the Rocky Mountains. The learned J. Belfast, Director of the Cambridge Observatory, accompanied him. Arrived at the station the two friends had summarily installed themselves, and no longer left the summit of their enormous telescope.
We know that this gigantic instrument had been set up on the reflecting system, called "front view" by the English. This arrangement only gave one reflection of objects, and consequently made the view much clearer. The result was that J.T. Maston and Belfast, whilst observing, were stationed in the upper part of the instrument instead of in the lower. They reached it by a twisted staircase, a masterpiece of lightness, and below them lay the metal, well terminated by the metallic mirror, 280 feet deep.
Now it was upon the narrow platform placed round the telescope that the twosavantspassed their existence, cursing the daylight which hid the moon from their eyes, and the clouds which obstinately veiled her at night.
Who can depict their delight when, after waiting several days, during the night of December 5th they perceived the vehicle that was carrying their friends through space? To that delight succeeded deep disappointment when, trusting to incomplete observations, they sent out with their first telegram to the world the erroneous affirmation that the projectile had become a satellite of the moon gravitating in an immutable orbit.
After that instant the bullet disappeared behind the invisible disc of the moon. But when it ought to have reappeared on the invisible disc the impatience of J.T. Maston and his no less impatient companion may be imagined. At every minute of the night they thought they should see the projectile again, and they did not see it. Hence between them arose endless discussions and violent disputes, Belfast affirming that the projectile was not visible, J.T. Maston affirming that any one but a blind man could see it.
"It is the bullet!" repeated J.T. Maston.
"No!" answered Belfast, "it is an avalanche falling from a lunar mountain!"
"Well, then, we shall see it to-morrow."
"No, it will be seen no more. It is carried away into space."
"We shall see it, I tell you."
"No, we shall not."
And while these interjections were being showered like hail, the well-known irritability of the Secretary of the Gun Club constituted a permanent danger to the director, Belfast.
Their existence together would soon have become impossible, but an unexpected event cut short these eternal discussions.
During the night between the 14th and 15th of December the two irreconcilable friends were occupied in observing the lunar disc. J.T. Maston was, as usual, saying strong things to the learned Belfast, who was getting angry too. The Secretary of the Gun Club declared for the thousandth time that he had just perceived the projectile, adding even that Michel Ardan's face had appeared at one of the port-lights. He was emphasising his arguments by a series of gestures which his redoubtable hook rendered dangerous.
At that moment Belfast's servant appeared upon the platform—it was 10 p.m.—and gave him a telegram. It was the message from the Commander of the Susquehanna.
Belfast tore the envelope, read the inclosure, and uttered a cry.
"What is it?" said J.T. Maston.
"It's the bullet!"
"What of that?"
"It has fallen upon the earth!"
Another cry; this time a howl answered him.
He turned towards J.T. Maston. The unfortunate fellow, leaning imprudently over the metal tube, had disappeared down the immense telescope—a fall of 280 feet! Belfast, distracted, rushed towards the orifice of the reflector.
He breathed again. J.T. Maston's steel hook had caught in one of the props which maintained the platform of the telescope. He was uttering formidable cries.
Belfast called. Help came, and the imprudent secretary was hoisted up, not without trouble.
He reappeared unhurt at the upper orifice.
"Suppose I had broken the mirror?" said he.
"You would have paid for it," answered Belfast severely.
"And where has the infernal bullet fallen?" asked J.T. Maston.
"Into the Pacific."
"Let us start at once."
A quarter of an hour afterwards the two learned friends were descending the slope of the Rocky Mountains, and two days afterwards they reached San Francisco at the same time as their friends of the Gun Club, having killed five horses on the road.
Elphinstone, Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed up to them upon their arrival.
"What is to be done?" they exclaimed.
"The bullet must be fished up," answered J.T. Maston, "and as soon as possible!"
The very spot where the projectile had disappeared under the waves was exactly known. The instruments for seizing it and bringing it to the surface of the ocean were still wanting. They had to be invented and then manufactured. American engineers could not be embarrassed by such a trifle. The grappling-irons once established and steam helping, they were assured of raising the projectile, notwithstanding its weight, which diminished the density of the liquid amidst which it was plunged.
But it was not enough to fish up the bullet. It was necessary to act promptly in the interest of the travellers. No one doubted that they were still living.
"Yes," repeated J.T. Maston incessantly, whose confidence inspired everybody, "our friends are clever fellows, and they cannot have fallen like imbeciles. They are alive, alive and well, but we must make haste in order to find them so. He had no anxiety about provisions and water. They had enough for a long time! But air!—air would soon fail them. Then they must make haste!"
And they did make haste. They prepared the Susquehanna for her new destination. Her powerful engines were arranged to be used for the hauling machines. The aluminium projectile only weighed 19,250 lbs., a much less weight than that of the transatlantic cable, which was picked up under similar circumstances. The only difficulty lay in the smooth sides of the cylindro-conical bullet, which made it difficult to grapple.
With that end in view the engineer Murchison, summoned to San Francisco, caused enormous grappling-irons to be fitted upon an automatical system which would not let the projectile go again if they succeeded in seizing it with their powerful pincers. He also had some diving-dresses prepared, which, by their impermeable and resisting texture, allowed divers to survey the bottom of the sea. He likewise embarked on board the Susquehanna apparatuses for compressed air, very ingeniously contrived. They were veritable rooms, with port-lights in them, and which, by introducing the water into certain compartments, could be sunk to great depths. These apparatuses were already at San Francisco, where they had been used in the construction of a submarine dyke. This was fortunate, for there would not have been time to make them.
Yet notwithstanding the perfection of the apparatus, notwithstanding the ingenuity of thesavantswho were to use them, the success of the operation was anything but assured. Fishing up a bullet from 20,000 feet under water must be an uncertain operation. And even if the bullet should again be brought to the surface, how had the travellers borne the terrible shock that even 20,000 feet of water would not sufficiently deaden?
In short, everything must be done quickly. J.T. Maston hurried on his workmen day and night. He was ready either to buckle on the diver's dress or to try the air-apparatus in order to find his courageous friends.
Still, notwithstanding the diligence with which the different machines were got ready, notwithstanding the considerable sums which were placed at the disposition of the Gun Club by the Government of the Union, five long days (five centuries) went by before the preparations were completed. During that time public opinion was excited to the highest point. Telegrams were incessantly exchanged all over the world through the electric wires and cables. The saving of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan became an international business. All the nations that had subscribed to the enterprise of the Gun Club were equally interested in the safety of the travellers.
At last the grappling-chains, air-chambers, and automatic grappling-irons were embarked on board the Susquehanna. J.T. Maston, the engineer Murchison, and the Gun Club delegates already occupied their cabins. There was nothing to do but to start.
On the 21st of December, at 8 p.m., the corvette set sail on a calm sea with a rather cold north-east wind blowing. All the population of San Francisco crowded on to the quays, mute and anxious, reserving its hurrahs for the return.
The steam was put on to its maximum of tension, and the screw of theSusquehanna carried it rapidly out of the bay.
It would be useless to relate the conversations on board amongst the officers, sailors, and passengers. All these men had but one thought. Their hearts all beat with the same emotion. What were Barbicane and his companions doing whilst they were hastening to their succour? What had become of them? Had they been able to attempt some audacious manoeuvre to recover their liberty? No one could say. The truth is that any attempt would have failed. Sunk to nearly two leagues under the ocean, their metal prison would defy any effort of its prisoners.
On the 23rd of December, at 8 a.m., after a rapid passage, the Susquehanna ought to be on the scene of the disaster. They were obliged to wait till twelve o'clock to take their exact bearings. The buoy fastened on to the sounding-line had not yet been seen.
At noon Captain Blomsberry, helped by his officers, who controlled the observation, made his point in presence of the delegates of the Gun Club. That was an anxious moment. The Susquehanna was found to be at some minutes west of the very spot where the projectile had disappeared under the waves.
The direction of the corvette was therefore given in view of reaching the precise spot.
At 12.47 p.m. the buoy was sighted. It was in perfect order, and did not seem to have drifted far.
"At last!" exclaimed J.T. Maston.
"Shall we begin?" asked Captain Blomsberry.
"Without losing a second," answered J.T. Maston.
Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette perfectly motionless.
Before trying to grapple the projectile, the engineer, Murchison, wished to find out its exact position on the sea-bottom. The submarine apparatus destined for this search received their provision of air. The handling of these engines is not without danger, for at 20,000 feet below the surface of the water and under such great pressure they are exposed to ruptures the consequences of which would be terrible.
J.T. Maston, the commander's brother, and the engineer Murchison, without a thought of these dangers, took their places in the air-chambers. The commander, on his foot-bridge, presided over the operation, ready to stop or haul in his chains at the least signal. The screw had been taken off, and all the force of the machines upon the windlass would soon have brought up the apparatus on board.
The descent began at 1.25 p.m., and the chamber, dragged down by its reservoirs filled with water, disappeared under the surface of the ocean.
The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was now divided between the prisoners in the projectile and the prisoners of the submarine apparatus. These latter forgot themselves, and, glued to the panes of the port-lights, they attentively observed the liquid masses they were passing through.
The descent was rapid. At 2.17 p.m. J.T. Maston and his companions had reached the bottom of the Pacific; but they saw nothing except the arid desert which neither marine flora nor fauna any longer animated. By the light of their lamps, furnished with powerful reflectors, they could observe the dark layers of water in a rather large radius, but the projectile remained invisible in their eyes.
The impatience of these bold divers could hardly be described. Their apparatus being in electric communication with the corvette, they made a signal agreed upon, and the Susquehanna carried their chamber over a mile of space at one yard from the soil.
They thus explored all the submarine plain, deceived at every instant by optical delusions which cut them to the heart. Here a rock, there a swelling of the ground, looked to them like the much-sought-for projectile; then they would soon find out their error and despair again.
"Where are they? Where can they be?" cried J.T. Maston.
And the poor man called aloud to Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan, as if his unfortunate friends could have heard him through that impenetrable medium!
The search went on under those conditions until the vitiated state of the air in the apparatus forced the divers to go up again.
The hauling in was begun at 6 p.m., and was not terminated before midnight.
"We will try again to-morrow," said J.T. Maston as he stepped on to the deck of the corvette.
"Yes," answered Captain Blomsberry.
"And in another place."
"Yes."
J.T. Maston did not yet doubt of his ultimate success, but his companions, who were no longer intoxicated with the animation of the first few hours, already took in all the difficulties of the enterprise. What seemed easy at San Francisco in open ocean appeared almost impossible. The chances of success diminished in a large proportion, and it was to chance alone that the finding of the projectile had to be left.
The next day, the 24th of December, notwithstanding the fatigues of the preceding day, operations were resumed. The corvette moved some minutes farther west, and the apparatus, provisioned with air again, took the same explorers to the depths of the ocean.
All that day was passed in a fruitless search. The bed of the sea was a desert. The day of the 25th brought no result, neither did that of the 26th.
It was disheartening. They thought of the unfortunate men shut up for twenty-six days in the projectile. Perhaps they were all feeling the first symptoms of suffocation, even if they had escaped the dangers of their fall. The air was getting exhausted, and doubtless with the air their courage and spirits.
"The air very likely, but their courage never," said J.T. Maston.
On the 28th, after two days' search, all hope was lost. This bullet was an atom in the immensity of the sea! They must give up the hope of finding it.
Still J.T. Maston would not hear about leaving. He would not abandon the place without having at least found the tomb of his friends. But Captain Blomsberry could not stay on obstinately, and notwithstanding the opposition of the worthy secretary, he was obliged to give orders to set sail.
On the 29th of December, at 9 a.m., the Susquehanna, heading north-east, began to return to the bay of San Francisco.
It was 10 a.m. The corvette was leaving slowly and as if with regret the scene of the catastrophe, when the sailor at the masthead, who was on the look-out, called out all at once—
"A buoy on the lee bow!"
The officers looked in the direction indicated. They saw through their telescopes the object signalled, which did look like one of those buoys used for marking the openings of bays or rivers; but, unlike them, a flag floating in the wind surmounted a cone which emerged five or six feet. This buoy shone in the sunshine as if made of plates of silver.
The commander, Blomsberry, J.T. Maston, and the delegates of the Gun Club ascended the foot-bridge and examined the object thus drifting on the waves.
All looked with feverish anxiety, but in silence. None of them dared utter the thought that came into all their minds.
The corvette approached to within two cables' length of the object.
A shudder ran through the whole crew.
The flag was an American one!
At that moment a veritable roar was heard. It was the worthy J.T. Maston, who had fallen in a heap; forgetting on the one hand that he had only an iron hook for one arm, and on the other that a simple gutta-percha cap covered his cranium-box, he had given himself a formidable blow.
They rushed towards him and picked him up. They recalled him to life.And what were his first words?
"Ah! triple brutes! quadruple idiots! quintuple boobies that we are!"
"What is the matter?" every one round him exclaimed.
"What the matter is?"
"Speak, can't you?"
"It is, imbeciles," shouted the terrible secretary, "it is the bullet only weighs 19,250 lbs!"
"Well?"
"And it displaces 28 tons, or 56,000 lbs., consequentlyit floats!"
Ah! how that worthy man did underline the verb "to float!" And it was the truth! All, yes! all thesesavantshad forgotten this fundamental law, that in consequence of its specific lightness the projectile, after having been dragged by its fall to the greatest depths of the ocean, had naturally returned to the surface; and now it was floating tranquilly whichever way the wind carried them.
The boats had been lowered. J.T. Maston and his friends rushed into them. The excitement was at its highest point. All hearts palpitated whilst the boats rowed towards the projectile. What did it contain—the living or the dead? The living. Yes! unless death had struck down Barbicane and his companions since they had hoisted the flag!
Profound silence reigned in the boats. All hearts stopped beating. Eyes no longer performed their office. One of the port-lights of the projectile was opened. Some pieces of glass remaining in the frame proved that it had been broken. This port-light was situated actually five feet above water.
A boat drew alongside—that of J.T. Maston. He rushed to the broken window.
At that moment the joyful and clear voice of Michel Ardan was heard exclaiming in the accents of victory—"Double blank, Barbicane, double blank!"
Barbicane, Michel Ardan, and Nicholl were playing at dominoes.
It will be remembered that immense sympathy accompanied the three travellers upon their departure. If the beginning of their enterprise had caused such excitement in the old and new world, what enthusiasm must welcome their return! Would not those millions of spectators who had invaded the Floridian peninsula rush to meet the sublime adventurers? Would those legions of foreigners from all points of the globe, now in America, leave the Union without seeing Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan once more? No, and the ardent passion of the public would worthily respond to the grandeur of the enterprise. Human beings who had left the terrestrial spheroid, who had returned after their strange journey into celestial space, could not fail to be received like the prophet Elijah when he returned to the earth. To see them first, to hear them afterwards, was the general desire.
This desire was to be very promptly realised by almost all the inhabitants of the Union.
Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the delegates of the Gun Club returned without delay to Baltimore, and were there received with indescribable enthusiasm. The president's travelling notes were ready to be given up for publicity. TheNew York Heraldbought this manuscript at a price which is not yet known, but which must have been enormous. In fact, during the publication of theJourney to the Moonthey printed 5,000,000 copies of that newspaper. Three days after the travellers' return to the earth the least details of their expedition were known. The only thing remaining to be done was to see the heroes of this superhuman enterprise.
The exploration of Barbicane and his friends around the moon had allowed them to control the different theories about the terrestrial satellite. Thesesavantshad observed itde visuand under quite peculiar circumstances. It was now known which systems were to be rejected, which admitted, upon the formation of this orb, its origin, and its inhabitability. Its past, present, and future had given up their secrets. What could be objected to conscientious observations made at less than forty miles from that curious mountain of Tycho, the strangest mountain system of lunar orography? What answers could be made tosavantswho had looked into the dark depths of the amphitheatre of Pluto? Who could contradict these audacious men whom the hazards of their enterprise had carried over the invisible disc of the moon, which no human eye had ever seen before? It was now their prerogative to impose the limits of that selenographic science which had built up the lunar world like Cuvier did the skeleton of a fossil, and to say, "The moon was this, a world inhabitable and inhabited anterior to the earth! The moon is this, a world now uninhabitable and uninhabited!"
In order to welcome the return of the most illustrious of its members and his two companions, the Gun Club thought of giving them a banquet; but a banquet worthy of them, worthy of the American people, and under such circumstances that all the inhabitants of the Union could take a direct part in it.
All the termini of the railroads in the State were joined together by movable rails. Then, in all the stations hung with the same flags, decorated with the same ornaments, were spread tables uniformly dressed. At a certain time, severely calculated upon electric clocks which beat the seconds at the same instant, the inhabitants were invited to take their places at the same banquet.
During four days, from the 5th to the 9th of January, the trains were suspended like they are on Sundays upon the railways of the Union, and all the lines were free.
One locomotive alone, a very fast engine, dragging a state saloon, had the right of circulating, during these four days, upon the railways of the United States.
This locomotive, conducted by a stoker and a mechanic, carried, by a great favour, the Honourable J.T. Maston, Secretary of the Gun Club.
The saloon was reserved for President Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, andMichel Ardan.
The train left the station of Baltimore upon the whistle of the engine-driver amidst the hurrahs and all the admiring interjections of the American language. It went at the speed of eighty leagues an hour. But what was that speed compared to the one with which the three heroes had left the Columbiad?
Thus they went from one town to another, finding the population in crowds upon their passage saluting them with the same acclamations, and showering upon them the same "bravoes." They thus travelled over the east of the Union through Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, and New Brunswick; north and west through New York, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin; south through Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana; south-east through Alabama and Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas; they visited the centre through Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana; then after the station of Washington they re-entered Baltimore, and during four days they could imagine that the United States of America, seated at one immense banquet, saluted them simultaneously with the same hurrahs.
This apotheosis was worthy of these heroes, whom fable would have placed in the ranks of demigods.
And now would this attempt, without precedent in the annals of travels, have any practical result? Would direct communication ever be established with the moon? Would a service of navigation ever be founded across space for the solar world? Will people ever go from planet to planet, from Jupiter to Mercury, and later on from one star to another, from the Polar star to Sirius, would a method of locomotion allow of visiting the suns which swarm in the firmament?
No answer can be given to these questions, but knowing the audacious ingenuity of the Anglo-Saxon race, no one will be astonished that the Americans tried to turn President Barbicane's experiment to account.
Thus some time after the return of the travellers the public received with marked favour the advertisement of a Joint-Stock Company (Limited), with a capital of a hundred million dollars, divided into a hundred thousand shares of a thousand dollars each, under the name ofNational Company for Interstellar Communication—President, Barbicane; Vice-President, Captain Nicholl; Secretary, J.T. Maston; Director, Michel Ardan—and as it is customary in America to foresee everything in business, even bankruptcy, the Honourable Harry Trollope, Commissary Judge, and Francis Dayton were appointed beforehand assignees.