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communication with the Earth? Why have they not fired a projectile from
the regions lunar to the regions terrestrial?"

"Who says they have not done so?" asked Barbican, coolly.

"Attempting such a communication," observed the Captain, "would
certainly be much easier for them than for us, principally for two
reasons. First, attraction on the Moon's surface being six times less
than on the Earth's, a projectile could be sent off more rapidly;
second, because, as this projectile need be sent only 24 instead of 240
thousand miles, they could do it with a quantity of powder ten times
less than what we should require for the same purpose."

"Then I ask again," said the Frenchman; "why haven't they made such an
attempt?"

"And I reply again," answered Barbican. "How do you know that they have
not made such an attempt?"

"Made it? When?"

"Thousands of years ago, before the invention of writing, before even
the appearance of Man on the Earth."

"But the bullet?" asked Ardan, triumphantly; "Where's the bullet?
Produce the bullet!"

"Friend Michael," answered Barbican, with a quiet smile, "you appear to
forget that the 5/6 of the surface of our Earth is water. 5 to 1,
therefore, that the bullet is more likely to be lying this moment at the
bottom of the Atlantic or the Pacific than anywhere else on the surface
of our globe. Besides, it may have sunk into some weak point of the
surface, at the early epoch when the crust of the Earth had not acquired
sufficient solidity."

"Captain," said Ardan, turning with a smile to M'Nicholl; "no use in
trying to catch Barby; slippery as an eel, he has an answer for
everything. Still I have a theory on the subject myself, which I think
it no harm to ventilate. It is this: The Selenites have never sent us
any projectile at all, simply because they had no gunpowder: being older
and wiser than we, they were never such fools as to invent any.--But,
what's that? Diana howling for her breakfast! Good! Like genuine
scientific men, while squabbling over nonsense, we let the poor animals
die of hunger. Excuse us, Diana; it is not the first time the little
suffer from the senseless disputes of the great."

So saying he laid before the animal a very toothsome pie, and
contemplated with evident pleasure her very successful efforts towards
its hasty and complete disappearance.

"Looking at Diana," he went on, "makes me almost wish we had made a
Noah's Ark of our Projectile by introducing into it a pair of all the
domestic animals!"

"Not room enough," observed Barbican.

"No doubt," remarked the Captain, "the ox, the cow, the horse, the goat,
all the ruminating animals would be very useful in the Lunar continent.
But we couldn't turn our Projectile into a stable, you know."

"Still, we might have made room for a pair of poor little donkeys!"
observed Ardan; "how I love the poor beasts. Fellow feeling, you will
say. No doubt, but there really is no animal I pity more.

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