"With my hand," answered Michel.
"Well, then, my friend, do not try it," said Barbicane, "for the hand you draw back will be only a stump, frozen and deformed by the frightful cold."
"Really?"
"You would feel the sensation of a terrible burn, like one made with a red-hot iron, for the same thing happens when heat is brutally abstracted from our body as when it is inserted. Besides, I am not sure that objects thrown out still follow us."
"Why?" said Nicholl.
"Because if we are passing through any atmosphere, however slightly dense, these objects will be delayed. Now the darkness prevents us verifying whether they still float around us. Therefore, in order not to risk our thermometer, we will tie something to it, and so easily pull it back into the interior."
Barbicane's advice was followed. Nicholl threw the instrument out of the rapidly-opened port-light, holding it by a very short cord, so that it could be rapidly drawn in. The window was only open one second, and yet that one second was enough to allow the interior of the projectile to become frightfully cold.
"Mille diables!" cried Michel Ardan, "it is cold enough here to freeze white bears!"
Barbicane let half-an-hour go by, more than sufficient time to allow the instrument to descend to the level of the temperature of space. The thermometer was then rapidly drawn in.
Barbicane calculated the quantity of mercury spilt into the little phial soldered to the lower part of the instrument, and said—