at a square of glass!”
“Well!” replied Barbicane, smiling. “And what hand would be
powerful enough to throw a ball to give such a shock as that?”
“The hand is not necessary,” answered Nicholl, not at all
confounded; “and as to the stone, let us suppose it to be a comet.”
“Ah! those much-abused comets!” exclaimed Barbicane. “My brave
Michel, your explanation is not bad; but your comet is useless.
The shock which produced that rent must have some from the
inside of the star. A violent contraction of the lunar crust,
while cooling, might suffice to imprint this gigantic star.”
“A contraction! something like a lunar stomach-ache.” said
Michel Ardan.
“Besides,” added Barbicane, “this opinion is that of an English
savant, Nasmyth, and it seems to me to sufficiently explain the
radiation of these mountains.”
“That Nasmyth was no fool!” replied Michel.
Long did the travelers, whom such a sight could never weary,
admire the splendors of Tycho. Their projectile, saturated with
luminous gleams in the double irradiation of sun and moon, must
have appeared like an incandescent globe. They had passed
suddenly from excessive cold to intense heat. Nature was thus
preparing them to become Selenites. Become Selenites! That idea
brought up once more the question of the habitability of the moon.
After what they had seen, could the travelers solve it? Would they
decide for or against it? Michel Ardan persuaded his two friends
to form an opinion, and asked them directly if they thought that
men and animals were represented in the lunar world.
“I think that we can answer,” said Barbicane; “but according to
my idea the question ought not to be put in that form. I ask it
to be put differently.”
“Put it your own way,” replied Michel.
“Here it is,” continued Barbicane. “The problem is a double one,
and requires a double solution. Is the moon _habitable_? Has the
moon ever been _inhabitable_?”
“Good!” replied Nicholl. “First let us see whether the moon
is habitable.”
“To tell the truth, I know nothing about it,” answered Michel.
“And I answer in the negative,” continued Barbicane. “In her
actual state, with her surrounding atmosphere certainly very
much reduced, her seas for the most part dried up, her
insufficient supply of water restricted, vegetation, sudden
alternations of cold and heat, her days and nights of 354
hours– the moon does not seem habitable to me, nor does she
seem propitious to animal development, nor sufficient for the
wants of existence as we understand it.”
“Agreed,” replied Nicholl. “But is not the moon habitable for
creatures differently organized from ourselves?”
“That question is more difficult to answer, but I will try; and
I ask Nicholl if _motion_ appears to him to be a necessary
result of _life_, whatever be its organization?”
“Without a doubt!” answered Nicholl.
“Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observed
the lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and that
nothing seemed to us to move on the moon’s surface. The presence
of any kind of life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks,
such as divers buildings, and even by ruins. And what have
we seen? Everywhere and always the geological works of nature,
never the work of man. If, then, there exist representatives
of the animal kingdom on the moon, they must have fled to those
unfathomable cavities which the eye cannot reach; which I cannot
admit, for they must have left traces of their passage on those
plains which the atmosphere must cover, however slightly raised
it may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There remains but
one hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion, which is
life, is foreign.”
“One might as well say, living creatures which do not live,”
replied Michel.
“Just so,” said Barbicane, “which for us has no meaning.”
“Then we may form our opinion?” said Michel.
“Yes,” replied Nicholl.
“Very well,” continued Michel Ardan, “the Scientific Commission
assembled in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having
founded their argument on facts recently observed, decide
unanimously upon the question of the habitability of the moon–
`_No!_ the moon is not habitable.'”
This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to his