HOW THREE MEN WENT TO THE MOON.
That is, how it is said that they went to the moon. That no man ever did go is very certain, and that no one ever will go, is very probable, but true as these statements are, they did not prevent a Frenchman from writing a story about a trip to the moon, undertaken by two Americans, and one Frenchman.
I cannot tell you all this story, but I can give you a few of the incidents that occurred during the journey, and although these are purely imaginary, they are very interesting and amusing. If any one ever had made this journey he would probably have gone as these three people went in the story. Everything is described as minutely and carefully as if it had really happened.
The journey was made in an immense, hollow cannon ball, or rather a cylindrical shot, which was fired out of a great cannon, nine hundred feet long!
This cannon, which was pointed directly at the spot where the moon would be by the time the ball had time to reach it, was planted in the earth in Florida, where thousands of people congregated to see it fired off.
When the great load of gun-cotton was touched off by means of an electrical battery, there was a tremendous explosion, and away went the great hollow projectile, with the three travelers inside, directly towards the moon.
This projectile was very comfortably and conveniently arranged. The walls were padded and there were springs in the floor, so that the inmates might not receive too great a shock when they started. It was furnished with plenty of provisions, with contrivances for lighting and ventilating it, and a machine for manufacturing atmospheric air, which is something that travelers do not expect to find at the moon.
There were thick plate-glass windows in the sides, and everything that could be thought of to make the trip comfortable and safe was found in this curious aerial car.
THE DOGS THAT STARTED FOR THE MOON.
Not only were there three men in the projectile, but it contained two dogs and some chickens. The picture shows the dogs, which were handsome creatures, and it will also give you an idea of the inside arrangements, with the telescope, and the guns hanging on the wall.
The distance from the earth to the moon was to be accomplished in about four days, and after the first shock of the starting, which was quite heavy, notwithstanding the springs and the cushions, our travelers began to make themselves at home.
They talked, they ate and drank and smoked. They took observations out of their windows, and watched the earth recede until it looked like a great moon, and saw the moon approach until it seemed like a little earth.
One of them, the Frenchman, was in such high spirits that if his companions would have allowed him he would have got outside of their little house and stood in triumph on the very top, as it went whizzing through the air.
The artist has given us a picture of how he would have looked if he had stood out there where he wanted to perch himself.
His idea was that as there was as much momentum in him as there was in the projectile, there was no danger of his falling off and being left behind.
But if any of you ever do go to the moon in a hollow cannon-ball, I would strongly recommend you not to get outside.
After a while they passed beyond the limit of the earth’s attraction, and began to enter that of the moon. But when they were about on the line between these two attractions, a very singular thing took place. Everything in the projectile, the men, the dog, (one of the dogs died the first day and was thrown out) the telescope, the chickens and every article that was not fastened down, seemed to lose all its gravity or weight.
As there is no reason why anything without weight should stay in any particular place, unless it is fastened there by some mechanical means, these people and things began to float about in the air.
THE FRENCHMAN OUTSIDE.
The men rose up and were wafted here and there by a touch. Hats floated away and chickens and telescopes hung suspended between the floor and the roof, as thistledown, on a still summer’s day floats in the air.
Even the dog, who thought that he was sitting on the floor, was sitting in the air, several feet from the floor.
EVERY THING WAS FLOATING IN THE AIR.
This was a most remarkable state of things, and it is no wonder that the travelers could not very soon get used to it.
To feel oneself soaring like a balloon must certainly be a curious sensation.
But these men expected all sorts of strange experiences, and so this did not frighten them, and the nearer they came to the moon, the more effect her gravity had upon them, and as the projectile gradually turned its heaviest end towards the moon its inmates gradually recovered their weight, and sat and stood like common people.
After journeying still further they had another very strange experience.
As they gradually neared the moon they found that they were also revolving around it. This was very unfortunate. If this motion continued, the result of their journey would be that their projectile would become a lunar satellite—a moon’s moon. They would go around and around forever, and never reach the moon or be able to get back to the earth.
After a while they got around to the shadow side of the moon, so that she was between them and the earth.
Then they were in total darkness excepting when they lighted their gas-burner, and they could not keep the gas burning all the time, as their supply was getting rather low.
But the darkness was not their chief trouble. It began to be very cold. And then it got colder and still colder, until they thought they should freeze into solid lumps. Their breath congealed so that it fell in the form of snow about them, and the poor dog, shivering under a cloak, lay upon the floor as cold as if he had been dropped into a deep hole in an ice-berg.
They thought it must be still colder outside, and so they lowered a thermometer through a small trap-door in the floor, and when they drew it in the mercury stood at 218 degrees below zero!
That was a very fine thermometer, and it is a Frenchman who tells this story.
THE TRAVELERS ARE COLD.
At last they passed around the moon, and again found themselves upon its sunny side. Then they were happy. Light and heat, after the dreadful darkness and cold through which they had passed were enough to make men happy, especially men so far away from home and all the comforts and conveniences of civilized society.
As they passed around the moon they had a fine opportunity of observing the lunar landscapes. They were not so far away but that with their glasses they could see the mountains and plains, and all sorts of curious caves, and wonderful formations like forts and castles, but which they knew to be nothing but great masses of the moon’s surface, thrown up in these strange shapes by volcanic action. It is probable that what is described in this story is very like what the real surface of the moon must be.
After they had revolved some time they found that they were getting farther and farther away from the moon, and this made them suppose that they were moving in an elliptical orbit. They were much discouraged by this idea, for they thought, and very justly too, that there was now no chance of the moon’s drawing them towards itself, so that they would fall upon its surface.
This they had hoped to do, and they did not expect to suffer from the fall, for the attraction of the moon is so much less than that of the earth that they thought they would descend rather gently on the moon’s surface. But now there seemed to be no chance of their getting there at all.
At last, however, they found that they were passing entirely out of the line of the moon’s attraction, and after that they perceived plainly that they were falling.
But not upon the moon. They were falling towards the earth!
This was dreadful. A fall of 240,000 miles! But they could not help it, and down they went.
Out in the Pacific ocean there was a United States steamship, taking soundings. The captain was astonished to find at the place where they were sailing, about two hundred miles from the coast of California, that the water was so deep that the longest sounding lines would scarcely reach the bottom.
As he and his officers were discussing this matter, a distant hissing sound was heard, like the escape of steam from a steam-pipe. But it sounded as if it were high up in the air. It came nearer and nearer and grew louder and louder, and as all eyes were turned upwards towards the point from which the hissing seemed to come, they saw what they thought was a great meteor, rapidly approaching them from the sky.
THE NARROW ESCAPE OF THE STEAMER.
It seemed to be coming directly towards the ship. In a moment more they saw plainly that it was coming straight down on the ship!
Before they had time to do anything, or even to give warning to those who were below, it dashed into the sea just before the vessel, carrying away the bowsprit in its furious descent.
Fortunately that was all the damage it did. Had the vessel been a few yards farther in advance it would have been instantly sunk.
It was a most narrow escape, and everybody felt wonderfully relieved when this great object, which looked like a ball of fire as it came so rapidly through the air, sank hissing into the sea.
But the officers guessed what it was, when it had disappeared. They had heard of the wonderful trip to the moon that had been undertaken by the three adventurers, and they very sensibly supposed that this must be the projectile that had fallen back upon the earth.
When they had made up their minds about the matter, and this did not take them long, they began to think what they should do. The unfortunate men in the projectile might be yet alive, and measures should instantly be taken to rescue them, if they were living, and in any case, to raise the projectile and discover their fate.
But the vessel had no machinery by which this ponderous mass could be drawn up from the bottom of the sea, especially as the sea was at this spot about four miles deep.
So they determined to return as rapidly as possible to San Francisco and obtain the necessary machinery for the work. Fortunately they had been sounding and had a line out. So they fastened a buoy to this line to mark the place, and steamed away at the best speed of their vessel, for San Francisco.
When they reached this port the news was telegraphed to the proper authorities, and, indeed, all over the country, and of course it created a great excitement.
The officers of the Society which had been the means of sending off these three men on their hazardous journey, went immediately to work, and in a few days the steamer, supplied with diving machinery and grappling irons, set out to return to the scene of the disaster.
There everybody worked rapidly and manfully. Diving bells were lowered and everything that could be done was done, but although they labored day and night, for several days no trace of the great projectile could be found on the bottom of the ocean, after searching carefully for a mile or two on every side of the buoy that had been left when they returned to San Francisco.
At last they became convinced that further search was useless, and much to the disappointment of everybody, and the intense grief of the friends of the unfortunate men who had come out on the vessel when it started on its errand of rescue, the Captain ordered the steamer to return to San Francisco.
When they had been sailing homeward for an hour or so, a sailor discovered, about a mile from the vessel, what seemed to be a large buoy, floating on the surface of the sea.
In an instant every glass in the vessel was directed towards this object. It was like a buoy, but it had a flag floating from the top of it!
The steamer immediately headed for it, and when they came near enough everybody saw what it was.
It was the great projectile quietly floating on the waves!
The air which it contained had made it so buoyant that although it probably sank to the bottom of the ocean in its rapid descent, it had risen again, and was now riding on the surface of the ocean like a corked bottle.
But were the men alive? This must be settled instantly.
In a very few minutes two boats were launched and were soon speeding towards the floating projectile as fast as strong arms could pull them.
When the first boat reached the great hollow iron cannon-shot they saw that one of its windows, which was some distance above the water, was open.
Two of the boat’s crew stood up and looked in.
Our three moon-travelers were quietly sitting inside playing dominoes!
TWO OF THE CREW LOOK IN.
The great depth of the ocean had broken their fall, and they were all safe and uninjured. They knew some one would come for them, and they were making themselves as comfortable as they could.
Of course they were speedily taken out of their iron house, in which they had lived for nearly a month, and in which they had met with such strange adventures and such narrow escapes.
Then with our three friends on board, the steamer started back for San Francisco, where our adventurers were received with the wildest enthusiasm, which indeed attended them during all their journey to their homes in the Atlantic States.
And so ended this trip to the moon.
It was a very wonderful thing for any one to even imagine such a journey as this, and I do not believe that any one but a Frenchman would have imagined it.