in 12,000 years, by reason of the succession of equinoxes, will
resign their part of the polar stars, the one to Canopus in the
southern hemisphere, the other to Wega in the northern.
Imagination loses itself in this sublime Infinity, amid which
the projectile was gravitating, like a new star created by the
hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations shone
with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no
atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally
dense and of different degrees of humidity, produces
this scintillation. These stars were soft eyes, looking out
into the dark night, amid the silence of absolute space.
Long did the travelers stand mute, watching the constellated
firmament, upon which the moon, like a vast screen, made an
enormous black hole. But at length a painful sensation drew
them from their watchings. This was an intense cold, which soon
covered the inside of the glass of the scuttles with a thick
coating of ice. The sun was no longer warming the projectile
with its direct rays, and thus it was losing the heat stored up
in its walls by degrees. This heat was rapidly evaporating into
space by radiation, and a considerably lower temperature was
the result. The humidity of the interior was changed into ice
upon contact with the glass, preventing all observation.
Nicholl consulted the thermometer, and saw that it had fallen to
seventeen degrees (Centigrade) below zero. [3] So that, in spite
of the many reasons for economizing, Barbicane, after having
begged light from the gas, was also obliged to beg for heat.
The projectile’s low temperature was no longer endurable.
Its tenants would have been frozen to death.
[3] 1@ Fahrenheit.
“Well!” observed Michel, “we cannot reasonably complain of the
monotony of our journey! What variety we have had, at least
in temperature. Now we are blinded with light and saturated with
heat, like the Indians of the Pampas! now plunged into profound
darkness, amid the cold, like the Esquimaux of the north pole.
No, indeed! we have no right to complain; nature does wonders in
our honor.”
“But,” asked Nicholl, “what is the temperature outside?”
“Exactly that of the planetary space,” replied Barbicane.
“Then,” continued Michel Ardan, “would not this be the time to
make the experiment which we dared not attempt when we were
drowned in the sun’s rays?
“It is now or never,” replied Barbicane, “for we are in a good
position to verify the temperature of space, and see if Fourier
or Pouillet’s calculations are exact.”
“In any case it is cold,” said Michel. “See! the steam of the
interior is condensing on the glasses of the scuttles. If the fall
continues, the vapor of our breath will fall in snow around us.”
“Let us prepare a thermometer,” said Barbicane.
We may imagine that an ordinary thermometer would afford no
result under the circumstances in which this instrument was to
be exposed. The mercury would have been frozen in its ball,
as below 42@ Fahrenheit below zero it is no longer liquid.
But Barbicane had furnished himself with a spirit thermometer
on Wafferdin’s system, which gives the minima of excessively
low temperatures.
Before beginning the experiment, this instrument was compared
with an ordinary one, and then Barbicane prepared to use it.
“How shall we set about it?” asked Nicholl.
“Nothing is easier,” replied Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss.
“We open the scuttle rapidly; throw out the instrument; it follows
the projectile with exemplary docility; and a quarter of an hour
after, draw it in.”
“With the hand?” asked Barbicane.
“With the hand,” replied Michel.
“Well, then, my friend, do not expose yourself,” answered
Barbicane, “for the hand that you draw in again will be nothing
but a stump frozen and deformed by the frightful cold.”
“Really!”
“You will feel as if you had had a terrible burn, like that of
iron at a white heat; for whether the heat leaves our bodies
briskly or enters briskly, it is exactly the same thing.
Besides, I am not at all certain that the objects we have thrown
out are still following us.”
“Why not?” asked Nicholl.
“Because, if we are passing through an atmosphere of the