From the Earth to the Moon | Page 8

constructed upon the conditions of ascertained resistance, it might not
be possible to project a shot up to the moon?"
At these words a murmur of amazement escaped from a thousand

panting chests; then succeeded a moment of perfect silence, resembling
that profound stillness which precedes the bursting of a thunderstorm.
In point of fact, a thunderstorm did peal forth, but it was the thunder of
applause, or cries, and of uproar which made the very hall tremble. The
president attempted to speak, but could not. It was fully ten minutes
before he could make himself heard.
"Suffer me to finish," he calmly continued. "I have looked at the
question in all its bearings, I have resolutely attacked it, and by
incontrovertible calculations I find that a projectile endowed with an
initial velocity of 12,000 yards per second, and aimed at the moon,
must necessarily reach it. I have the honor, my brave colleagues, to
propose a trial of this little experiment."
CHAPTER III
EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATION
It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the last words of the
honorable president-- the cries, the shouts, the succession of roars,
hurrahs, and all the varied vociferations which the American language
is capable of supplying. It was a scene of indescribable confusion and
uproar. They shouted, they clapped, they stamped on the floor of the
hall. All the weapons in the museum discharged at once could not have
more violently set in motion the waves of sound. One need not be
surprised at this. There are some cannoneers nearly as noisy as their
own guns.
Barbicane remained calm in the midst of this enthusiastic clamor;
perhaps he was desirous of addressing a few more words to his
colleagues, for by his gestures he demanded silence, and his powerful
alarum was worn out by its violent reports. No attention, however, was
paid to his request. He was presently torn from his seat and passed from
the hands of his faithful colleagues into the arms of a no less excited
crowd.
Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the
word "impossible" in not a French one. People have evidently been

deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as
for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise.
Between Barbicane's proposition and its realization no true Yankee
would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible.
A thing with them is no sooner said than done.
The triumphal progress of the president continued throughout the
evening. It was a regular torchlight procession. Irish, Germans, French,
Scotch, all the heterogeneous units which make up the population of
Maryland shouted in their respective vernaculars; and the "vivas,"
"hurrahs," and "bravos" were intermingled in inexpressible enthusiasm.
Just at this crisis, as though she comprehended all this agitation
regarding herself, the moon shone forth with serene splendor, eclipsing
by her intense illumination all the surrounding lights. The Yankees all
turned their gaze toward her resplendent orb, kissed their hands, called
her by all kinds of endearing names. Between eight o'clock and
midnight one optician in Jones'-Fall Street made his fortune by the sale
of opera-glasses.
Midnight arrived, and the enthusiasm showed no signs of diminution. It
spread equally among all classes of citizens-- men of science,
shopkeepers, merchants, porters, chair-men, as well as "greenhorns,"
were stirred in their innermost fibres. A national enterprise was at stake.
The whole city, high and low, the quays bordering the Patapsco, the
ships lying in the basins, disgorged a crowd drunk with joy, gin, and
whisky. Every one chattered, argued, discussed, disputed, applauded,
from the gentleman lounging upon the barroom settee with his tumbler
of sherry-cobbler before him down to the waterman who got drunk
upon his "knock-me-down" in the dingy taverns of Fell Point.
About two A.M., however, the excitement began to subside. President
Barbicane reached his house, bruised, crushed, and squeezed almost to
a mummy. Hercules could not have resisted a similar outbreak of
enthusiasm. The crowd gradually deserted the squares and streets. The
four railways from Philadelphia and Washington, Harrisburg and
Wheeling, which converge at Baltimore, whirled away the
heterogeneous population to the four corners of the United States, and

the city subsided into comparative tranquility.
On the following day, thanks to the telegraphic wires, five hundred
newspapers and journals, daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly, all
took up the question. They examined it under all its different aspects,
physical, meteorological, economical, or moral, up to its bearings on
politics or civilization. They debated whether the moon was a finished
world, or whether it was destined to undergo any further transformation.
Did it resemble the earth at the period when the latter was destitute as
yet of an atmosphere? What kind of spectacle would its hidden
hemisphere