Part 32 (1/2)

--”Yes,” went on Barbican, as serenely as a judge, ”comets, they said, had fallen on the surface in meteoric showers and crushed in the crater cavities; comets had dried up the water; comets had whisked off the atmosphere; comets had done everything. All pure a.s.sumption! In your case, however, friend Michael, no comet whatever is necessary. The shock that gave rise to your great 'star' may have come from the interior rather than the exterior. A violent contraction of the lunar crust in the process of cooling may have given birth to your gigantic 'star'

formation.”

”I accept the amendment,” said Ardan, now in the best of humor and looking triumphantly at M'Nicholl.

”An English scientist,” continued Barbican, ”Nasmyth by name, is decidedly of your opinion, especially ever since a little experiment of his own has confirmed him in it. He filled a gla.s.s globe with water, hermetically sealed it, and then plunged it into a hot bath. The enclosed water, expanding at a greater rate than the gla.s.s, burst the latter, but, in doing so, it made a vast number of cracks all diverging in every direction from the focus of disruption. Something like this he conceives to have taken place around _Tycho_. As the crust cooled, it cracked. The lava from the interior, oozing out, spread itself on both sides of the cracks. This certainly explains pretty satisfactorily why those flat glistening streaks are of much greater width than the fissures through which the lava had at first made its way to the surface.”

”Well done for an Englishman!” cried Ardan in great spirits.

”He's no Englishman,” said M'Nicholl, glad to have an opportunity of coming off with some credit. ”He is the famous Scotch engineer who invented the steam hammer, the steam ram, and discovered the 'willow leaves' in the Sun's disc.”

”Better and better,” said Ardan--”but, powers of Vulcan! What makes it so hot? I'm actually roasting!”

This observation was hardly necessary to make his companions conscious that by this time they felt extremely uncomfortable. The heat had become quite oppressive. Between the natural caloric of the Sun and the reflected caloric of the Moon, the Projectile was fast turning into a regular bake oven. This transition from intense cold to intense heat was already about quite as much as they could bear.

”What shall we do, Barbican?” asked Ardan, seeing that for some time no one else appeared inclined to say a word.

”Nothing, at least yet awhile, friend Ardan,” replied Barbican, ”I have been watching the thermometer carefully for the last few minutes, and, though we are at present at 38 centigrade, or 100 Fahrenheit, I have noticed that the mercury is slowly falling. You can also easily remark for yourself that the floor of the Projectile is turning away more and more from the lunar surface. From this I conclude quite confidently, and I see that the Captain agrees with me, that all danger of death from intense heat, though decidedly alarming ten minutes ago, is over for the present and, for some time at least, it may be dismissed from further consideration.”

”I'm not very sorry for it,” said Ardan cheerfully; ”neither to be baked like a pie in an oven nor roasted like a fat goose before a fire is the kind of death I should like to die of.”

”Yet from such a death you would suffer no more than your friends the Selenites are exposed to every day of their lives,” said the Captain, evidently determined on getting up an argument.

”I understand the full bearing of your allusion, my dear Captain,”

replied Ardan quickly, but not at all in a tone showing that he was disposed to second M'Nicholl's expectations.

He was, in fact, fast losing all his old habits of positivism. Latterly he had seen much, but he had reflected more. The deeper he had reflected, the more inclined he had become to accept the conclusion that the less he knew. Hence he had decided that if M'Nicholl wanted an argument it should not be with him. All speculative disputes he should henceforth avoid; he would listen with pleasure to all that could be urged on each side; he might even skirmish a little here and there as the spirit moved him; but a regular pitched battle on a subject purely speculative he was fully determined never again to enter into.

”Yes, dear Captain,” he continued, ”that pointed arrow of yours has by no means missed its mark, but I can't deny that my faith is beginning to be what you call a little 'shaky' in the existence of my friends the Selenites. However, I should like to have your square opinion on the matter. Barbican's also. We have witnessed many strange lunar phenomena lately, closer and clearer than mortal eye ever rested on them before.

Has what we have seen confirmed any theory of yours or confounded any hypothesis? Have you seen enough to induce you to adopt decided conclusions? I will put the question formally. Do you, or do you not, think that the Moon resembles the Earth in being the abode of animals and intelligent beings? Come, answer, _messieurs_. Yes, or no?”

”I think we can answer your question categorically,” replied Barbican, ”if you modify its form a little.”

”Put the question any way you please,” said Ardan; ”only you answer it!

I'm not particular about the form.”

”Good,” said Barbican; ”the question, being a double one, demands a double answer. First: _Is the Moon inhabitable?_ Second: _Has the Moon ever been inhabited?_”

”That's the way to go about it,” said the Captain. ”Now then, Ardan, what do _you_ say to the first question? Yes, or no?”

”I really can't say anything,” replied Ardan. ”In the presence of such distinguished scientists, I'm only a listener, a 'mere looker on in Vienna' as the Divine Williams has it. However, for the sake of argument, suppose I reply in the affirmative, and say that _the Moon is inhabitable_.”

”If you do, I shall most unhesitatingly contradict you,” said Barbican, feeling just then in splendid humor for carrying on an argument, not, of course, for the sake of contradicting or conquering or crus.h.i.+ng or showing off or for any other vulgar weakness of lower minds, but for the n.o.ble and indeed the only motive that should impel a philosopher--that of _enlightening_ and _convincing_, ”In taking the negative side, however, or saying that the Moon is not inhabitable, I shall not be satisfied with merely negative arguments. Many words, however, are not required. Look at her present condition: her atmosphere dwindled away to the lowest ebb; her 'seas' dried up or very nearly so; her waters reduced to next to nothing; her vegetation, if existing at all, existing only on the scantiest scale; her transitions from intense heat to intense cold, as we ourselves can testify, sudden in the extreme; her nights and her days each nearly 360 hours long. With all this positively against her and nothing at all that we know of positively for her, I have very little hesitation in saying that the Moon appears to me to be absolutely uninhabitable. She seems to me not only unpropitious to the development of the animal kingdom but actually incapable of sustaining life at all--that is, in the sense that we usually attach to such a term.”

”That saving clause is well introduced, friend Barbican,” said M'Nicholl, who, seeing no chance of demolis.h.i.+ng Ardan, had not yet made up his mind as to having another little bout with the President. ”For surely you would not venture to a.s.sert that the Moon is uninhabitable by a race of beings having an organization different from ours?”

”That question too, Captain,” replied Barbican, ”though a much more difficult one, I shall try to answer. First, however, let us see, Captain, if we agree on some fundamental points. How do we detect the existence of life? Is it not by _movement_? Is not _motion_ its result, no matter what may be its organization?”

”Well,” said the Captain in a drawling way, ”I guess we may grant that.”