Part 48 (1/2)
”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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sembled 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 notebook, where the process of the sitting of the 6th of December may be seen.
”Now,” said Nicholl, ”let us attack the second question, an indispensable complement of the first. I ask the honorable commission, if the moon is not habitable, has she ever been inhabited, Citizen Barbicane?”
”My friends,” replied Barbicane, ”I did not undertake this journey in order to form an opinion on the past habitability of our satellite; but I will add that our personal observations only confirm me in this opinion. I believe, indeed I affirm, that the moon has been inhabited by a human race organized like our own; that she has produced animals anatomically formed like the terrestrial animals: but I add that these races, human and animal, have had their day, and are now forever extinct!”
”Then,” asked Michel, ”the moon must be older than the earth?”
”No!” said Barbicane decidedly, ”but a world which has grown old quicker, and whose formation and deformation have been more rapid.
Relatively, the organizing force of matter has been much more violent in the interior of the moon than in the interior of the terrestrial globe. The actual state of this cracked, twisted, and burst disc abundantly proves this. The moon and the earth were nothing but gaseous ma.s.ses originally. These gases have pa.s.sed into a liquid state under different influences, and the solid ma.s.ses have been formed later. But most certainly our sphere was still gaseous or liquid, when the moon was solidified by cooling, and had become habitable.”
”I believe it,” said Nicholl.
”Then,” continued Barbicane, ”an atmosphere surrounded it, the waters contained within this gaseous envelope could not evaporate.
Under the influence of air, water, light, solar heat, and central heat, vegetation took possession of the continents prepared to receive it, and certainly life showed itself about this period, for nature does not expend herself in vain; and a world so wonderfully formed for habitation must necessarily be inhabited.”