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the cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the great
American experiment. We will not attempt to picture the effect produced on
the entire world by that unexpected denouement.
On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed to the Susquehanna
to wait in the bay of San Francisco without extinguishing her fires. Day and
night she must be ready to put to sea.
The Cambridge observatory called a special meeting; and, with that composure
which distinguishes learned bodies in general, peacefully discussed the
scientific bearings of the question.
At the Gun Club there was an explosion. All the gunners were assembled.
Vice-President the Hon. Wilcome was in the act of reading the premature
dispatch, in which J. T. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had
just been seen in the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak, and also that it was
held by lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under satellite to the
lunar world.
We know the truth on that point.
But on the arrival of Blomsberry's dispatch, so decidely contradicting J. T.
Maston's telegram, two parties were formed in the bosom of the Gun Club. On
one side were those who admitted the fall of the projectile, and consequently
the return of the travelers; on the other, those who believed in the
observations of Long's Peak, concluded that the commander of the
Susquehanna had made a mistake. To the latter the pretended projectile was
nothing but a meteor! nothing but a meteor, a shooting globe, which in its
fall had smashed the bows of the corvette. It was difficult to answer this
argument, for the speed with which it was animated must have made observation
very difficult. The commander of the Susquehanna and her officers might have
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made a mistake in all good faith; one argument however, was in their favor,
namely, that if the projectile had fallen on the earth, its place of meeting
with the terrestrial globe could only take place on this 27@ north latitude,
and
(taking into consideration the time that had elapsed, and the rotary motion of
the earth) between the 41@ and the 42@ of west longitude. In any case, it was
decided in the Gun Club that Blomsberry brothers, Bilsby, and Major
Elphinstone should go straight to San Francisco, and consult as to the means
of raising the projectile from the depths of the ocean.
These devoted men set off at once; and the railroad, which will soon cross the
whole of Central America, took them as far as St.
Louis, where the swift mail-coaches awaited them. Almost at the same moment
in which the Secretary of Marine, the vice-president of the Gun Club, and the
sub-director of the Observatory received the dispatch from San Francisco, the
Honorable J. T. Maston was undergoing the greatest excitement he had ever
experienced in his life, an excitement which even the bursting of his pet gun,
which had more than once nearly cost him his life, had not caused him.
We may remember that the secretary of the Gun Club had started soon after the
projectile (and almost as quickly) for the station on Long's Peak, in the
Rocky Mountains, J. Belfast, director of the
FROM EARTH TO THE MOON
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208
Cambridge Observatory, accompanying him. Arrived there, the two friends had
installed themselves at once, never quitting the summit of their enormous
telescope. We know that this gigantic instrument had been set up according to
the reflecting system, called by the English "front view." This arrangement
subjected all objects to but one reflection, making the view consequently much
clearer; the result was that, when they were taking observation, J. T. Maston
and Belfast were placed in the _upper_
part of the instrument and not in the lower, which they reached by a circular
staircase, a masterpiece of lightness, while below them opened a metal well
terminated by the metallic mirror, which measured two hundred and eighty feet
in depth.
It was on a narrow platform placed above the telescope that the two savants
passed their existence, execrating the day which hid the moon from their eyes,
and the clouds which obstinately veiled her during the night.
What, then, was their delight when, after some days of waiting, on the night
of the 5th of December, they saw the vehicle which was bearing their friends
into space! To this delight succeeded a great deception, when, trusting to a
cursory observation, they launched their first telegram to the world,
erroneously affirming that the projectile had become a satellite of the moon,
gravitating in an immutable orbit.
From that moment it had never shown itself to their eyes-- a disappearance all
the more easily explained, as it was then passing behind the moon's invisible
disc; but when it was time for it to reappear on the visible disc, one may
imagine the impatience of the fuming J. T. Maston and his not less impatient
companion. Each minute of the night they thought they saw the projectile once
more, and they did not see it.
Hence constant discussions and violent disputes between them, Belfast
affirming that the projectile could not be seen, J. T.
Maston maintaining that "it had put his eyes out."
"It is the projectile!" repeated J. T. Maston.
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"No," answered Belfast; "it is an avalanche detached from a lunar mountain."
"Well, we shall see it to-morrow."
"No, we shall not see it any more. It is carried into space."
"Yes!"
"No!"
And at these moments, when contradictions rained like hail, the well-known
irritability of the secretary of the Gun Club constituted a permanent danger
for the Honorable Belfast.
The existence of these two together would soon have become impossible; but an
unforseen event cut short their everlasting discussions.
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209
During the night, from the 14th to the 15th of December, the two
irreconcilable friends were busy observing the lunar disc, J. T.
Maston abusing the learned Belfast as usual, who was by his side; the
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