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going to the Sun, we must provide ourselves before hand with a few of
your Rodman's Columbiads to frighten off the Solarians!"
"Your Columbiads would not do great execution there," observed
M'Nicholl; "your bullet would be hardly out of the barrel when it would
drop to the surface like a heavy stone pushed off the wall of a house."
"Oh! I like that!" laughed the incredulous Ardan.
"A little calculation, however, shows the Captain's remark to be
perfectly just," said Barbican. "Rodman's ordinary 15 inch Columbiad
requires a charge of 100 pounds of mammoth powder to throw a ball of
500 pounds weight. What could such a charge do with a ball weighing 30
times as much or 15,000 pounds? Reflect on the enormous weight
everything must have on the surface of the Sun! Your hat, for instance,
would weigh 20 or 30 pounds. Your cigar nearly a pound. In short, your
own weight on the Sun's surface would be so great, more than two tons,
that if you ever fell you should never be able to pick yourself up
again!"
"Yes," added the Captain, "and whenever you wanted to eat or drink you
should rig up a set of powerful machinery to hoist the eatables and
drinkables into your mouth."
"Enough of the Sun to-day, boys!" cried Ardan, shrugging his shoulders;
"I don't contemplate going there at present. Let us be satisfied with
the Moon! There, at least, we shall be of some account!"
CHAPTER IX.
A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK.
Barbican's mind was now completely at rest at least on one subject. The
original force of the discharge had been great enough to send the
Projectile beyond the neutral line. Therefore, there was no longer any
danger of its falling back to the Earth. Therefore, there was no longer
any danger of its resting eternally motionless on the point of the
counteracting attractions. The next subject to engage his attention was
the question: would the Projectile, under the influence of lunar
attraction, succeed in reaching its destination?
The only way in which it _could_ succeed was by falling through a space
of nearly 24,000 miles and then striking the Moon's surface. A most
terrific fall! Even taking the lunar attraction to be only the one-sixth
of the Earth's, such a fall was simply bewildering to think of. The
greatest height to which a balloon ever ascended was seven miles
(Glaisher, 1862). Imagine a fall from even that distance! Then imagine a
fall from a height of four thousand miles!
Yet it was for a fall of this appalling kind on the surface of the Moon
that the travellers had now to prepare themselves. Instead of avoiding
it, however, they eagerly desired it and would be very much
disappointed if they missed it. They had taken the best precautions they
could devise to guard against the terrific shock. These were mainly of
two kinds: one was intended to counteract as much as possible the
fearful results to be expected the instant the Projectile touched the
lunar surface; the other, to retard the velocity of the fall itself, and
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