--"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 crushing 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 demolishing 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."
"Then, dear friends," resumed Barbican, "I must remind you that, though we have had the privilege of observing the lunar continents at a distance of not more than one-third of a mile, we have never yet caught sight of the first thing moving on her surface. The presence of humanity, even of the lowest type, would have revealed itself in some form or other, by boundaries, by buildings, even by ruins. Now what _have_ we seen? Everywhere and always, the geological works of _nature_; nowhere and never, the orderly labors of _man_. Therefore, if any representatives of animal life exist in the Moon, they must have taken refuge in those bottomless abysses where our eyes were unable to track them. And even this I can"t admit. They could not always remain in these cavities. If there is any atmosphere at all in the Moon, it must be found in her immense low-lying plains. Over those plains her inhabitants must have often pa.s.sed, and on those plains they must in some way or other have left some mark, some trace, some vestige of their existence, were it even only a road. But you both know well that nowhere are any such traces visible: therefore, they don"t exist; therefore, no lunar inhabitants exist--except, of course, such a race of beings, if we can imagine any such, as could exist without revealing their existence by _movement_."
"That is to say," broke in Ardan, to give what he conceived a sharper point to Barbican"s cogent arguments, "such a race of beings as could exist without existing!"
"Precisely," said Barbican: "Life without movement, and no life at all, are equivalent expressions."
"Captain," said Ardan, with all the gravity he could a.s.sume, "have you anything more to say before the Moderator of our little Debating Society gives his opinion on the arguments regarding the question before the house?"
"No more at present," said the Captain, biding his time.
"Then," resumed Ardan, rising with much dignity, "the Committee on Lunar Explorations, appointed by the Honorable Baltimore Gun Club, solemnly a.s.sembled in the Projectile belonging to the aforesaid learned and respectable Society, having carefully weighed all the arguments advanced on each side of the question, and having also carefully considered all the new facts bearing on the case that have lately come under the personal notice of said Committee, unanimously decides negatively on the question now before the chair for investigation--namely, "Is the Moon inhabitable?" Barbican, as chairman of the Committee, I empower you to duly record our solemn decision--_No, the Moon is not inhabitable_."
Barbican, opening his note-book, made the proper entry among the minutes of the meeting of December 6th.
"Now then, gentlemen," continued Ardan, "if you are ready for the second question, the necessary complement of the first, we may as well approach it at once. I propound it for discussion in the following form: _Has the Moon ever been inhabited?_ Captain, the Committee would be delighted to hear your remarks on the subject."
"Gentlemen," began the Captain in reply, "I had formed my opinion regarding the ancient inhabitability of our Satellite long before I ever dreamed of testing my theory by anything like our present journey. I will now add that all our observations, so far made, have only served to confirm me in my opinion. I now venture to a.s.sert, not only with every kind of probability in my favor but also on what I consider most excellent arguments, that the Moon was once inhabited by a race of beings possessing an organization similar to our own, that she once produced animals anatomically resembling our terrestrial animals, and that all these living organizations, human and animal, have had their day, that that day vanished ages and ages ago, and that, consequently, _Life_, extinguished forever, can never again reveal its existence there under any form."
"Is the Chair," asked Ardan, "to infer from the honorable gentleman"s observations that he considers the Moon to be a world much older than the Earth?"
"Not exactly that," replied the Captain without hesitation; "I rather mean to say that the Moon is a world that grew old more rapidly than the Earth; that it came to maturity earlier; that it ripened quicker, and was stricken with old age sooner. Owing to the difference of the volumes of the two worlds, the organizing forces of matter must have been comparatively much more violent in the interior of the Moon than in the interior of the Earth. The present condition of its surface, as we see it lying there beneath us at this moment, places this a.s.sertion beyond all possibility of doubt. Wrinkled, pitted, knotted, furrowed, scarred, nothing that we can show on Earth resembles it. Moon and Earth were called into existence by the Creator probably at the same period of time. In the first stages of their existence, they do not seem to have been anything better than ma.s.ses of gas. Acted upon by various forces and various influences, all of course directed by an omnipotent intelligence, these gases by degrees became liquid, and the liquids grew condensed into solids until solidity could retain its shape. But the two heavenly bodies, though starting at the same time, developed at a very different ratio. Most undoubtedly, our globe was still gaseous or at most only liquid, at the period when the Moon, already hardened by cooling, began to become inhabitable."
"_Most undoubtedly_ is good!" observed Ardan admiringly.
"At this period," continued the learned Captain, "an atmosphere surrounded her. The waters, shut in by this gaseous envelope, could no longer evaporate. Under the combined influences of air, water, light, and solar heat as well as internal heat, vegetation began to overspread the continents by this time ready to receive it, and most undoubtedly--I mean--a--incontestably--it was at this epoch that _life_ manifested itself on the lunar surface. I say _incontestably_ advisedly, for Nature never exhausts herself in producing useless things, and therefore a world, so wonderfully inhabitable, _must_ of necessity have had inhabitants."
"I like _of necessity_ too," said Ardan, who could never keep still; "I always did, when I felt my arguments to be what you call a little shaky."
"But, my dear Captain," here observed Barbican, "have you taken into consideration some of the peculiarities of our Satellite which are decidedly opposed to the development of vegetable and animal existence?
Those nights and days, for instance, 354 hours long?"
"I have considered them all," answered the brave Captain. "Days and nights of such an enormous length would at the present time, I grant, give rise to variations in temperature altogether intolerable to any ordinary organization. But things were quite different in the era alluded to. At that time, the atmosphere enveloped the Moon in a gaseous mantle, and the vapors took the shape of clouds. By the screen thus formed by the hand of nature, the heat of the solar rays was tempered and the nocturnal radiation r.e.t.a.r.ded. Light too, as well as heat, could be modified, tempered, and _genialized_ if I may use the expression, by the air. This produced a healthy counterpoise of forces, which, now that the atmosphere has completely disappeared, of course exists no longer.
Besides--friend Ardan, you will excuse me for telling you something new, something that will surprise you--"
--"Surprise me, my dear boy, fire away surprising me!" cried Ardan. "I like dearly to be surprised. All I regret is that you scientists have surprised me so much already that I shall never have a good, hearty, genuine surprise again!"
--"I am most firmly convinced," continued the Captain, hardly waiting for Ardan to finish, "that, at the period of the Moon"s occupancy by living creatures, her days and nights were by no means 354 hours long."
"Well! if anything could surprise me," said Ardan quickly, "such an a.s.sertion as that most certainly would. On what does the honorable gentleman base his _most firm conviction_?"
"We know," replied the Captain, "that the reason of the Moon"s present long day and night is the exact equality of the periods of her rotation on her axis and of her revolution around the Earth. When she has turned once around the Earth, she has turned once around herself. Consequently, her back is turned to the Sun during one-half of the month; and her face during the other half. Now, I don"t believe that this state of things existed at the period referred to."
"The gentleman does not believe!" exclaimed Ardan. "The Chair must be excused for reminding the honorable gentleman that it can not accept his incredulity as a sound and valid argument. These two movements have certainly equal periods now; why not always?"
"For the simple reason that this equality of periods is due altogether to the influence of terrestrial attraction," replied the ready Captain.
"This attraction at present, I grant, is so great that it actually disables the Moon from revolving on herself; consequently she must always keep the same face turned towards the Earth. But who can a.s.sert that this attraction was powerful enough to exert the same influence at the epoch when the Earth herself was only a fluid substance? In fact, who can even a.s.sert that the Moon has always been the Earth"s satellite?"
"Ah, who indeed?" exclaimed Ardan. "And who can a.s.sert that the Moon did not exist long before the Earth was called into being at all? In fact, who can a.s.sert that the Earth itself is not a great piece broken off the Moon? Nothing like asking absurd questions! I"ve often found them pa.s.sing for the best kind of arguments!"