The Moon-Voyage | Page 8

that during this memorable evening
Baltimore alone was agitated. The large towns of the Union, New York,
Boston, Albany, Washington, Richmond, New Orleans, Charlestown,
La Mobile of Texas, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Florida, all shared
in the delirium. The thirty thousand correspondents of the Gun Club
were acquainted with their president's letter, and awaited with equal
impatience the famous communication of the 5th of October. The same
evening as the orator uttered his speech it ran along the telegraph wires,
across the states of the Union, with a speed of 348,447 miles a second.
It may, therefore, be said with absolute certainty that at the same
moment the United States of America, ten times as large as France,
cheered with a single voice, and twenty-five millions of hearts, swollen
with pride, beat with the same pulsation.
The next day five hundred daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly
newspapers took up the question; they examined it under its different
aspects--physical, meteorological, economical, or moral, from a
political or social point of view. They debated whether the moon was a
finished world, or if she was not still undergoing transformation. Did
she resemble the earth in the time when the atmosphere did not yet
exist? What kind of spectacle would her hidden hemisphere present to
our terrestrial spheroid? Granting that the question at present was
simply about sending a projectile to the Queen of Night, every one saw
in that the starting-point of a series of experiments; all hoped that one
day America would penetrate the last secrets of the mysterious orb, and
some even seemed to fear that her conquest would disturb the balance
of power in Europe.
The project once under discussion, not one of the papers suggested a
doubt of its realisation; all the papers, treatises, bulletins, and
magazines published by scientific, literary, or religious societies
enlarged upon its advantages, and the "Natural History Society" of
Boston, the "Science and Art Society" of Albany, the "Geographical
and Statistical Society" of New York, the "American Philosophical
Society" of Philadelphia, and the "Smithsonian Institution" of
Washington sent in a thousand letters their congratulations to the Gun

Club, with immediate offers of service and money.
It may be said that no proposition ever had so many adherents; there
was no question of hesitations, doubts, or anxieties. As to the jokes,
caricatures, and comic songs that would have welcomed in Europe, and,
above all, in France, the idea of sending a projectile to the moon, they
would have been turned against their author; all the "life-preservers" in
the world would have been powerless to guarantee him against the
general indignation. There are things that are not to be laughed at in the
New World.
Impey Barbicane became from that day one of the greatest citizens of
the United States, something like a Washington of science, and one fact
amongst several will serve to show the sudden homage which was paid
by a nation to one man.
Some days after the famous meeting of the Gun Club the manager of an
English company announced at the Baltimore Theatre a representation
of _Much Ado About Nothing_, but the population of the town, seeing
in the title a damaging allusion to the projects of President Barbicane,
invaded the theatre, broke the seats, and forced the unfortunate
manager to change the play. Like a sensible man, the manager, bowing
to public opinion, replaced the offending comedy by _As You Like It_,
and for several weeks he had fabulous houses.



CHAPTER IV
.
ANSWER FROM THE CAMBRIDGE OBSERVATORY.
In the meantime Barbicane did not lose an instant amidst the
enthusiasm of which he was the object. His first care was to call
together his colleagues in the board-room of the Gun Club. There, after
a debate, they agreed to consult astronomers about the astronomical
part of their enterprise. Their answer once known, they would then
discuss the mechanical means, and nothing would be neglected to
assure the success of their great experiment.

A note in precise terms, containing special questions, was drawn up
and addressed to the observatory of Cambridge in Massachusetts. This
town, where the first University of the United States was founded, is
justly celebrated for its astronomical staff. There are assembled the
greatest men of science; there is the powerful telescope which enabled
Bond to resolve the nebula of Andromeda and Clarke to discover the
satellite of Sirius. This celebrated institution was, therefore, worthy in
every way of the confidence of the Gun Club.
After two days the answer, impatiently awaited, reached the hands of
President Barbicane.
It ran as follows:--
"The Director of the Cambridge Observatory to the President of the
Gun Club at Baltimore.
"On the receipt of your favour of the 6th inst., addressed to the
Observatory of Cambridge in the name of