But before beginning this operation the objects necessary for the journey were placed with order in the waggon-compartment. There were a good many of them, and if they had allowed Michel Ardan to do as he pleased he would soon have filled up all the space reserved for the travellers. No one can imagine all that the amiable Frenchman wished to carry to the moon—a heap of useless trifles. But Barbicane interfered, and refused all but the strictly necessary.
Several thermometers, barometers, and telescopes were placed in the instrument-case.
The travellers were desirous of examining the moon during their transit, and in order to facilitate the survey of this new world they took an excellent map by Boeer and Moedler, the Mappa Selenographica, published in four plates, which is justly looked upon as a masterpiece of patience and observation. It represented with scrupulous exactitude the slightest details of that portion of the moon turned towards the earth. Mountains, valleys, craters, peaks, watersheds, were depicted on it in their exact dimensions, faithful positions, and names, from Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz, whose highest summits rise on the eastern side of the disc, to the Mare Frigoris, which extends into the North Polar regions.
It was, therefore, a precious document for the travellers, for they could study the country before setting foot upon it.
They took also three rifles and three fowling-pieces with powder and shot in great quantity.
"We do not know with whom we may have to deal," said Michel Ardan. "Both men and beasts may be displeased at our visit; we must, therefore, take our precautions."
The instruments of personal defence were accompanied by pickaxes, spades, saws, and other indispensable tools, without mentioning garments suitable to every temperature, from the cold of the polar regions to the heat of the torrid zone.
Michel Ardan would have liked to take a certain number of animals of different sorts, not male and female of every species, as he did not see the necessity of acclimatising serpents, tigers, alligators, or any other noxious beasts in the moon.
"No," said he to Barbicane, "but some useful animals, ox or cow, ass or horse, would look well in the landscape and be of great use."
"I agree with you, my dear Ardan," answered the president of the Gun Club; "but our projectile is not Noah's Ark. It differs both in dimensions and object, so let us remain in the bounds of possibility."