"Now," said Nicholl, "let us attack the second question, depending on the first. I therefore ask the honourable Commission if the moon is not habitable, has it been inhabited?"
"Answer, Citizen Barbicane," said Michel Ardan.
"My friends," answered Barbicane, "I did not undertake this journey to form an opinion upon the ancient habitability of our satellite. I may add that my personal observations only confirm me in this opinion. I believe, I even affirm, that the moon has been inhabited by a human race organised like ours, that it has produced animals anatomically formed like terrestrial animals; but I add that these races, human or animal, have had their day, and are for ever extinct."
"Then," asked Michel, "the moon is an older world than the earth?"
"No," answered Barbicane with conviction, "but a world that has grown old more quickly, whose formation and deformation have been more rapid. Relatively the organising forces of matter have been much more violent in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the celestial globe. The actual state of this disc, broken up, tormented, and swollen, proves this abundantly. In their origin the moon and the earth were only gases. These gases became liquids under different influences, and the solid mass was formed afterwards. But it is certain that our globe was gas or liquid still when the moon, already solidified by cooling, became habitable."
"I believe that," said Nicholl.
"Then," resumed Barbicane, "it was surrounded by atmosphere. The water held in by the gassy element could not evaporate. Under the influence of air, water, light, and heat, solar and central, vegetation took possession of these continents prepared for its reception, and certainly life manifested itself about that epoch, for Nature does not spend itself in inutilities, and a world so marvellously habitable must have been inhabited."
"Still," answered Nicholl, "many phenomena inherent to the movements of our satellite must have prevented the expansion of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The days and nights 354 hours long, for example."
"At the terrestrial poles," said Michel, "they last six months."
"That is not a valuable argument, as the poles are not inhabited."