The American spoke as coolly of the voyage to the Moon as of a railway journey to New York.
“—J. T. Maston had exclaimed, “Let us invent machines, let us find a fulcrum, and we will shift the axis of the Earth!” Many of you heard him, and will remember it. Well, the machines are invented, the fulcrum is found, and it is to the righting of the Earth’s axis that our efforts will be directed.”
“What!” exclaimed Donellan. “You will put the Earth’s axis upright?”
“Yes, sir,” said Barbicane; “or rather we can make a new axis on which the diurnal rotation formerly—”
“Modify the diurnal rotation!” exclaimed Karkof.
“Absolutely! and without touching its duration. The operation will bring the Pole to about the sixty-seventh parallel, and under such circumstances the Earth will behave like Jupiter, whose axis is nearly perpendicular to the plane of his orbit. This displacement of 23° 28′ will suffice to obtain for our Polar property sufficient warmth to melt the ice accumulated for thousands of years.”
The audience looked at him in a state of breathlessness. No one dared to interrupt or even to applaud him. All were overwhelmed with the idea, which was so ingenious and so simple; to change the axis on which the globe turns!
The representatives of the rival syndicates were astounded, annihilated, and remained without a word to say for themselves.
But the applause broke out when Barbicane concluded with sublime simplicity,—
“Thus it is the Sun himself who will melt the icebergs and ice-floes, and render it easy to obtain access to the Pole!”