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Chapter XIV - The Night of Three Hundred and Fifty-Four Hours and A Half
At the moment when this phenomenon took place so rapidly, the
projectile was skirting the moon's north pole at less than
twenty-five miles distance. Some seconds had sufficed to plunge
it into the absolute darkness of space. The transition was so
sudden, without shade, without gradation of light, without
attenuation of the luminous waves, that the orb seemed to have
been extinguished by a powerful blow.
"Melted, disappeared!" Michel Ardan exclaimed, aghast.
Indeed, there was neither reflection nor shadow. Nothing more
was to be seen of that disc, formerly so dazzling. The darkness
was complete. and rendered even more so by the rays from the stars.
It was "that blackness" in which the lunar nights are insteeped,
which last three hundred and fifty-four hours and a half at each
point of the disc, a long night resulting from the equality of
the translatory and rotary movements of the moon. The projectile,
immerged in the conical shadow of the satellite, experienced the
action of the solar rays no more than any of its invisible points.
In the interior, the obscurity was complete. They could not see
each other. Hence the necessity of dispelling the darkness.
However desirous Barbicane might be to husband the gas, the
reserve of which was small, he was obliged to ask from it a
fictitious light, an expensive brilliancy which the sun then refused.
"Devil take the radiant orb!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "which
forces us to expend gas, instead of giving us his rays gratuitously."
"Do not let us accuse the sun," said Nicholl, "it is not his
fault, but that of the moon, which has come and placed herself
like a screen between us and it."
"It is the sun!" continued Michel.
"It is the moon!" retorted Nicholl.
An idle dispute, which Barbicane put an end to by saying:
"My friends, it is neither the fault of the sun nor of the moon;
it is the fault of the _projectile_, which, instead of rigidly
following its course, has awkwardly missed it. To be more just,
it is the fault of that unfortunate meteor which has so
deplorably altered our first direction."
"Well," replied Michel Ardan, "as the matter is settled, let us
have breakfast. After a whole night of watching it is fair to
build ourselves up a little."
This proposal meeting with no contradiction, Michel prepared the
repast in a few minutes. But they ate for eating's sake, they
drank without toasts, without hurrahs. The bold travelers being
borne away into gloomy space, without their accustomed
_cortege_ of rays, felt a vague uneasiness in their hearts.
The "strange" shadow so dear to Victor Hugo's pen bound them on
all sides. But they talked over the interminable night of three
hundred and fifty-four hours and a half, nearly fifteen days,
which the law of physics has imposed on the inhabitants of the moon.
Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of the causes and
the consequences of this curious phenomenon.
"Curious indeed," said they; "for, if each hemisphere of the
moon is deprived of solar light for fifteen days, that above
which we now float does not even enjoy during its long night any
view of the earth so beautifully lit up. In a word she has no
moon (applying this designation to our globe) but on one side of
her disc. Now if this were the case with the earth-- if, for
example, Europe never saw the moon, and she was only visible at
the antipodes, imagine to yourself the astonishment of a
European on arriving in Australia."
"They would make the voyage for nothing but to see the moon!"
replied Michel.
"Very well!" continued Barbicane, "that astonishment is reserved
for the Selenites who inhabit the face of the moon opposite to
the earth, a face which is ever invisible to our countrymen of
the terrestrial globe."
"And which we should have seen," added Nicholl, "if we had arrived
here when the moon was new, that is to say fifteen days later."
"I will add, to make amends," continued Barbicane, "that the
inhabitants of the visible face are singularly favored by nature,
to the detriment of their brethren on the invisible face.
The latter, as you see, have dark nights of 354 hours, without
one single ray to break the darkness. The other, on the contrary,
when the sun which has given its light for fifteen days sinks
below the horizon, see a splendid orb rise on the opposite horizon.
It is the earth, which is thirteen times greater than the
diminutive moon that we know-- the earth which developes itself
at a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen
times greater than that qualified by atmospheric strata-- the
earth which only disappears at the moment when the sun reappears
in its turn!"
"Nicely worded!" said Michel, "slightly academical perhaps."
"It follows, then," continued Barbicane, without knitting his
brows, "that the visible face of the disc must be very agreeable
to inhabit, since it always looks on either the sun when the
moon is full, or on the earth when the moon is new."
"But," said Nicholl, "that advantage must be well compensated by
the insupportable heat which the light brings with it."
"The inconvenience, in that respect, is the same for the two
faces, for the earth's light is evidently deprived of heat.
But the invisible face is still more searched by the heat than
the visible face. I say that for _you_, Nicholl, because Michel
will probably not understand."
"Thank you," said Michel.
"Indeed," continued Barbicane, "when the invisible face receives
at the same time light and heat from the sun, it is because the
moon is new; that is to say, she is situated between the sun and
the earth. It follows, then, considering the position which she
occupies in opposition when full, that she is nearer to the sun
by twice her distance from the earth; and that distance may be
estimated at the two-hundredth part of that which separates the
sun from the earth, or in round numbers 400,000 miles. So that
invisible face is so much nearer to the sun when she receives
its rays."
"Quite right," replied Nicholl.
"On the contrary," continued Barbicane.
"One moment," said Michel, interrupting his grave companion.
"What do you want?"
"I ask to be allowed to continue the explanation."
"And why?"
"To prove that I understand."
"Get along with you," said Barbicane, smiling.
"On the contrary," said Michel, imitating the tone and gestures
of the president, "on the contrary, when the visible face of the
moon is lit by the sun, it is because the moon is full, that is
to say, opposite the sun with regard to the earth. The distance
separating it from the radiant orb is then increased in round
numbers to 400,000 miles, and the heat which she receives must
be a little less."
"Very well said!" exclaimed Barbicane. "Do you know, Michel,
that, for an amateur, you are intelligent."
"Yes," replied Michel coolly, "we are all so on the Boulevard
des Italiens."
Barbicane gravely grasped the hand of his amiable companion, and
continued to enumerate the advantages reserved for the inhabitants
of the visible face.
Among others, he mentioned eclipses of the sun, which only take
place on this side of the lunar disc; since, in order that they
may take place, it is necessary for the moon to be _in
opposition_. These eclipses, caused by the interposition of the
earth between the moon and the sun, can last _two hours_; during
which time, by reason of the rays refracted by its atmosphere,
the terrestrial globe can appear as nothing but a black point
upon the sun.
"So," said Nicholl, "there is a hemisphere, that invisible
hemisphere which is very ill supplied, very ill treated,
by nature."
"Never mind," replied Michel; "if we ever become Selenites, we
will inhabit the visible face. I like the light."
"Unless, by any chance," answered Nicholl, "the atmosphere should
be condensed on the other side, as certain astronomers pretend."
"That would be a consideration," said Michel.
Breakfast over, the observers returned to their post. They tried
to see through the darkened scuttles by extinguishing all light
in the projectile; but not a luminous spark made its way through
the darkness.
One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. Why, having passed
within such a short distance of the moon--about twenty-five
miles only-- why the projectile had not fallen? If its speed
had been enormous, he could have understood that the fall would
not have taken place; but, with a relatively moderate speed,
that resistance to the moon's attraction could not be explained.
Was the projectile under some foreign influence? Did some kind
of body retain it in the ether? It was quite evident that it
could never reach any point of the moon. Whither was it going?
Was it going farther from, or nearing, the disc? Was it being
borne in that profound darkness through the infinity of space?
How could they learn, how calculate, in the midst of this night?
All these questions made Barbicane uneasy, but he could not
solve them.
Certainly, the invisible orb was _there_, perhaps only some few
miles off; but neither he nor his companions could see it.
If there was any noise on its surface, they could not hear it.
Air, that medium of sound, was wanting to transmit the groanings
of that moon which the Arabic legends call "a man already half
granite, and still breathing."
One must allow that that was enough to aggravate the most
patient observers. It was just that unknown hemisphere which
was stealing from their sight. That face which fifteen days
sooner, or fifteen days later, had been, or would be, splendidly
illuminated by the solar rays, was then being lost in utter darkness.
In fifteen days where would the projectile be? Who could say?
Where would the chances of conflicting attractions have drawn
it to? The disappointment of the travelers in the midst of this
utter darkness may be imagined. All observation of the lunar
disc was impossible. The constellations alone claimed all their
attention; and we must allow that the astronomers Faye, Charconac,
and Secchi, never found themselves in circumstances so favorable
for their observation.
Indeed, nothing could equal the splendor of this starry world,
bathed in limpid ether. Its diamonds set in the heavenly vault
sparkled magnificently. The eye took in the firmament from the
Southern Cross to the North Star, those two constellations which
in 12,000 years, by reason of the succession of equinoxes, will
resign their part of the polar stars, the one to Canopus in the
southern hemisphere, the other to Wega in the northern.
Imagination loses itself in this sublime Infinity, amid which
the projectile was gravitating, like a new star created by the
hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations shone
with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no
atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally
dense and of different degrees of humidity, produces
this scintillation. These stars were soft eyes, looking out
into the dark night, amid the silence of absolute space.
Long did the travelers stand mute, watching the constellated
firmament, upon which the moon, like a vast screen, made an
enormous black hole. But at length a painful sensation drew
them from their watchings. This was an intense cold, which soon
covered the inside of the glass of the scuttles with a thick
coating of ice. The sun was no longer warming the projectile
with its direct rays, and thus it was losing the heat stored up
in its walls by degrees. This heat was rapidly evaporating into
space by radiation, and a considerably lower temperature was
the result. The humidity of the interior was changed into ice
upon contact with the glass, preventing all observation.
Nicholl consulted the thermometer, and saw that it had fallen to
seventeen degrees (Centigrade) below zero. [3] So that, in spite
of the many reasons for economizing, Barbicane, after having
begged light from the gas, was also obliged to beg for heat.
The projectile's low temperature was no longer endurable.
Its tenants would have been frozen to death.
[3] 1@ Fahrenheit.
"Well!" observed Michel, "we cannot reasonably complain of the
monotony of our journey! What variety we have had, at least
in temperature. Now we are blinded with light and saturated with
heat, like the Indians of the Pampas! now plunged into profound
darkness, amid the cold, like the Esquimaux of the north pole.
No, indeed! we have no right to complain; nature does wonders in
our honor."
"But," asked Nicholl, "what is the temperature outside?"
"Exactly that of the planetary space," replied Barbicane.
"Then," continued Michel Ardan, "would not this be the time to
make the experiment which we dared not attempt when we were
drowned in the sun's rays?
"It is now or never," replied Barbicane, "for we are in a good
position to verify the temperature of space, and see if Fourier
or Pouillet's calculations are exact."
"In any case it is cold," said Michel. "See! the steam of the
interior is condensing on the glasses of the scuttles. If the fall
continues, the vapor of our breath will fall in snow around us."
"Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbicane.
We may imagine that an ordinary thermometer would afford no
result under the circumstances in which this instrument was to
be exposed. The mercury would have been frozen in its ball,
as below 42@ Fahrenheit below zero it is no longer liquid.
But Barbicane had furnished himself with a spirit thermometer
on Wafferdin's system, which gives the minima of excessively
low temperatures.
Before beginning the experiment, this instrument was compared
with an ordinary one, and then Barbicane prepared to use it.
"How shall we set about it?" asked Nicholl.
"Nothing is easier," replied Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss.
"We open the scuttle rapidly; throw out the instrument; it follows
the projectile with exemplary docility; and a quarter of an hour
after, draw it in."
"With the hand?" asked Barbicane.
"With the hand," replied Michel.
"Well, then, my friend, do not expose yourself," answered
Barbicane, "for the hand that you draw in again will be nothing
but a stump frozen and deformed by the frightful cold."
"Really!"
"You will feel as if you had had a terrible burn, like that of
iron at a white heat; for whether the heat leaves our bodies
briskly or enters briskly, it is exactly the same thing.
Besides, I am not at all certain that the objects we have thrown
out are still following us."
"Why not?" asked Nicholl.
"Because, if we are passing through an atmosphere of the
slightest density, these objects will be retarded. Again, the
darkness prevents our seeing if they still float around us.
But in order not to expose ourselves to the loss of our
thermometer, we will fasten it, and we can then more easily
pull it back again."
Barbicane's advice was followed. Through the scuttle rapidly
opened, Nicholl threw out the instrument, which was held by a
short cord, so that it might be more easily drawn up. The scuttle
had not been opened more than a second, but that second had sufficed
to let in a most intense cold.
"The devil!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "it is cold enough to
freeze a white bear."
Barbicane waited until half an hour had elapsed, which was more
than time enough to allow the instrument to fall to the level of
the surrounding temperature. Then it was rapidly pulled in.
Barbicane calculated the quantity of spirits of wine overflowed
into the little vial soldered to the lower part of the
instrument, and said:
"A hundred and forty degrees Centigrade [4] below zero!"
[4] 218 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.
M. Pouillet was right and Fourier wrong. That was the undoubted
temperature of the starry space. Such is, perhaps, that of the
lunar continents, when the orb of night has lost by radiation
all the heat which fifteen days of sun have poured into her.
Content of Chapter XIV - The Night of Three Hundred and Fifty-Four Hours and A Half [Jules Verne's novel: A trip around the Moon]
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