by Poe · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
A proto-science-fiction hoax-tale: a bankrupt Rotterdam bellows-mender escapes his debts by ballooning to the Moon, narrated with pseudo-scientific detail. Themes of the quest, the journey, satire and wonder.
Testo / Text
Parti / Parts
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
- Part 4
- Part 5
- Part 6
- Part 7
- Part 8
- Part 9
- Part 10
- Part 11
- Part 12
- Part 13
- Part 14
- Part 15
- Part 16
- Part 17
- Part 18
- Part 19
- Part 20
- Part 21
- Part 22
- Part 23
Readability (prose)49.9 Flesch ease13.3 FK grade16.6 Fog13% complex28.3 words/sent
Connections
Topoi: Quest Archetypes: Trickster Motifs: Journey, Moon Themes & Concepts: Wonder and Gratitude, Satire of Society Forms & Genres: Satire, Short Story
Testo integrale / Full text
By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high
state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there
occurred of a nature so completely unexpected—so entirely
novel—so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions—as to
leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an
uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy
together by the ears.
It appears that on the—— day of—— (I am not positive about the
date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically
mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in
the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was
warm—unusually so for the season—there was hardly a breath of air
stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at being now and
then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary duration,
that fell from large white masses of cloud which chequered in a
fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless,
about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in
the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded;
and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were upturned
toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously
from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could
be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded
long, loudly, and furiously, through all the environs of
Rotterdam.
The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From
behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of
cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open
area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid
substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not
to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently
admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed
below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and devils
in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one
could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus
Von Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the
mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one
to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth,
and cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon, puffed,
paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly—then waddled
back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed again.
In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly
city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so
much smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be
accurately discerned. It appeared to be—yes! it was undoubtedly a
species of balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen
in Rotterdam before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon
manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland
certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or
rather at some distance above their noses was the identical thing
in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of
the precise material which no one had ever before known to be
used for a similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the
good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the
phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or
nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. And this
similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when, upon nearer
inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its
apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle of
little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a
continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.
Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine,
there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a
brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black
band and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable
that many citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat
repeatedly before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard
it with eyes of familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon
sight of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and
declared it to be the identical hat of her good man himself. Now
this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with
three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about
five years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and
up to the date of this narrative all attempts had failed of
obtaining any intelligence concerning them whatsoever. To be
sure, some bones which were thought to be human, mixed up with a
quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a
retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some people went
so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been
committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans
Pfaall and his associates. But to return.
The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to
within a hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a
sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant. This
was in truth a very droll little somebody. He could not have been
more than two feet in height; but this altitude, little as it
was, would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and
tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but for the intervention
of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and rigged on
to the cords of the balloon. The body of the little man was more
than proportionately broad, giving to his entire figure a
rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course, could not be seen
at all, although a horny substance of suspicious nature was
occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car,
or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were
enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected into
a queue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and
inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and
cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and
double; but of ears of any kind or character there was not a
semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head. This odd
little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue
satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles
at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material; a
white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and,
to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief
enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his
bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.
Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet
from the surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was
suddenly seized with a fit of trepidation, and appeared
disinclined to make any nearer approach to terra firma. Throwing
out, therefore, a quantity of sand from a canvas bag, which, he
lifted with great difficulty, he became stationary in an instant.
He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated manner, to extract
from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket-book.
This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with an air
of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight.
He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter
sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let
it fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von
Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut,
still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther
business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make
busy preparations for departure; and it being necessary to
discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the
half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without
taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of
them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and
rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in
the face of every man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed,
however, that the great Underduk suffered this impertinence on
the part of the little old man to pass off with impunity. It is
said, on the contrary, that during each and every one of his
one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than
one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to
which he held fast the whole time with all his might, and to
which he intends holding fast until the day of his death.
In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far
away above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud
similar to that from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus
lost forever to the wondering eyes of the good citizens of
Rotterdam. All attention was now directed to the letter, the
descent of which, and the consequences attending thereupon, had
proved so fatally subversive of both person and personal dignity
to his Excellency, the illustrious Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus
Von Underduk. That functionary, however, had not failed, during
his circumgyratory movements, to bestow a thought upon the
important subject of securing the packet in question, which was
seen, upon inspection, to have fallen into the most proper hands,
being actually addressed to himself and Professor Rub-a-dub, in
their official capacities of President and Vice-President of the
Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was accordingly opened by
those dignitaries upon the spot, and found to contain the
following extraordinary, and indeed very serious, communication:
“To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and
Vice-President of the States’ College of Astronomers, in the city
of Rotterdam.
“Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble
artizan, by name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of
bellows, who, with three others, disappeared from Rotterdam,
about five years ago, in a manner which must have been considered
by all parties at once sudden, and extremely unaccountable. If,
however, it so please your Excellencies, I, the writer of this
communication, am the identical Hans Pfaall himself. It is well
known to most of my fellow citizens, that for the period of forty
years I continued to occupy the little square brick building, at
the head of the alley called Sauerkraut, in which I resided at
the time of my disappearance. My ancestors have also resided
therein time out of mind—they, as well as myself, steadily
following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession of
mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years,
that the heads of all the people have been set agog with
politics, no better business than my own could an honest citizen
of Rotterdam either desire or deserve. Credit was good,
employment was never wanting, and on all hands there was no lack
of either money or good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon began
to feel the effects of liberty and long speeches, and radicalism,
and all that sort of thing. People who were formerly, the very
best customers in the world, had now not a moment of time to
think of us at all. They had, so they said, as much as they could
do to read about the revolutions, and keep up with the march of
intellect and the spirit of the age. If a fire wanted fanning, it
could readily be fanned with a newspaper, and as the government
grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and iron acquired
durability in proportion, for, in a very short time, there was
not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in need of
a stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a state
of things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and,
having a wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length
became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting
upon the most convenient method of putting an end to my life.
Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation.
My house was literally besieged from morning till night, so that
I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against
the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular
who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about
my door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I
internally vowed the bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so
happy as to get them within my clutches; and I believe nothing in
the world but the pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from
putting my plan of suicide into immediate execution, by blowing
my brains out with a blunderbuss. I thought it best, however, to
dissemble my wrath, and to treat them with promises and fair
words, until, by some good turn of fate, an opportunity of
vengeance should be afforded me.
“One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more
than usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander
about the most obscure streets without object whatever, until at
length I chanced to stumble against the corner of a bookseller’s
stall. Seeing a chair close at hand, for the use of customers, I
threw myself doggedly into it, and, hardly knowing why, opened
the pages of the first volume which came within my reach. It
proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on Speculative Astronomy,
written either by Professor Encke of Berlin or by a Frenchman of
somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of information
on matters of this nature, and soon became more and more absorbed
in the contents of the book, reading it actually through twice
before I awoke to a recollection of what was passing around me.
By this time it began to grow dark, and I directed my steps
toward home. But the treatise had made an indelible impression on
my mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky streets, I revolved
carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes unintelligible
reasonings of the writer. There are some particular passages
which affected my imagination in a powerful and extraordinary
manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more intense grew
the interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature
of my education in general, and more especially my ignorance on
subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from rendering
me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or
inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen
in consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to
imagination; and I was vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough,
to doubt whether those crude ideas which, arising in
ill-regulated minds, have all the appearance, may not often in
effect possess all the force, the reality, and other inherent
properties, of instinct or intuition; whether, to proceed a step
farther, profundity itself might not, in matters of a purely
speculative nature, be detected as a legitimate source of falsity
and error. In other words, I believed, and still do believe, that
truth, is frequently of its own essence, superficial, and that,
in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek
her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas.
In the contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly
that I could not distinguish a star with nearly as much
precision, when I gazed on it with earnest, direct and
undeviating attention, as when I suffered my eye only to glance
in its vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at that time aware
that this apparent paradox was occasioned by the center of the
visual area being less susceptible of feeble impressions of light
than the exterior portions of the retina. This knowledge, and
some of another kind, came afterwards in the course of an
eventful five years, during which I have dropped the prejudices
of my former humble situation in life, and forgotten the
bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at the epoch of
which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of a star
offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with
the force of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my
mind to the course which I afterwards pursued.
“It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed.
My mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the
whole night buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning,
and contriving again to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I
repaired eagerly to the bookseller’s stall, and laid out what
little ready money I possessed, in the purchase of some volumes
of Mechanics and Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at home
safely with these, I devoted every spare moment to their perusal,
and soon made such proficiency in studies of this nature as I
thought sufficient for the execution of my plan. In the intervals
of this period, I made every endeavor to conciliate the three
creditors who had given me so much annoyance. In this I finally
succeeded—partly by selling enough of my household furniture to
satisfy a moiety of their claim, and partly by a promise of
paying the balance upon completion of a little project which I
told them I had in view, and for assistance in which I solicited
their services. By these means—for they were ignorant men—I found
little difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose.
“Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife
and with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what
property I had remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under
various pretences, and without paying any attention to my future
means of repayment, no inconsiderable quantity of ready money.
With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals,
cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine;
a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of
wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles necessary
in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary
dimensions. This I directed my wife to make up as soon as
possible, and gave her all requisite information as to the
particular method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the
twine into a net-work of sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a
hoop and the necessary cords; bought a quadrant, a compass, a
spy-glass, a common barometer with some important modifications,
and two astronomical instruments not so generally known. I then
took opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation
east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty
gallons each, and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes,
three inches in diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in
length; a quantity of a particular metallic substance, or
semi-metal, which I shall not name, and a dozen demijohns of a
very common acid. The gas to be formed from these latter
materials is a gas never yet generated by any other person than
myself—or at least never applied to any similar purpose. The
secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that it of
right belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was
conditionally communicated to myself. The same individual
submitted to me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a
method of constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain
animal, through which substance any escape of gas was nearly an
impossibility. I found it, however, altogether too expensive, and
was not sure, upon the whole, whether cambric muslin with a
coating of gum caoutchouc, was not equally as good. I mention
this circumstance, because I think it probable that hereafter the
individual in question may attempt a balloon ascension with the
novel gas and material I have spoken of, and I do not wish to
deprive him of the honor of a very singular invention.
“On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug
a hole two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle
twenty-five feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being
the station designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three
feet in depth. In each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a
canister containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg
holding one hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder. These—the
keg and canisters—I connected in a proper manner with covered
trains; and having let into one of the canisters the end of about
four feet of slow match, I covered up the hole, and placed the
cask over it, leaving the other end of the match protruding about
an inch, and barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the
remaining holes, and placed the barrels over them in their
destined situation.
“Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot,
and there secreted, one of M. Grimm’s improvements upon the
apparatus for condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this
machine, however, to require considerable alteration before it
could be adapted to the purposes to which I intended making it
applicable. But, with severe labor and unremitting perseverance,
I at length met with entire success in all my preparations. My
balloon was soon completed. It would contain more than forty
thousand cubic feet of gas; would take me up easily, I
calculated, with all my implements, and, if I managed rightly,
with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the
bargain. It had received three coats of varnish, and I found the
cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk itself, quite
as strong and a good deal less expensive.
“Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of
secrecy in relation to all my actions from the day of my first
visit to the bookseller’s stall; and promising, on my part, to
return as soon as circumstances would permit, I gave her what
little money I had left, and bade her farewell. Indeed I had no
fear on her account. She was what people call a notable woman,
and could manage matters in the world without my assistance. I
believe, to tell the truth, she always looked upon me as an idle
boy, a mere make-weight, good for nothing but building castles in
the air, and was rather glad to get rid of me. It was a dark
night when I bade her good-bye, and taking with me, as
aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so much
trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements,
by a roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were
deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded
immediately to business.
“It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was
dark; there was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain,
falling at intervals, rendered us very uncomfortable. But my
chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which, in spite of the
varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather heavy
with the moisture; the powder also was liable to damage. I
therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence,
pounding down ice around the central cask, and stirring the acid
in the others. They did not cease, however, importuning me with
questions as to what I intended to do with all this apparatus,
and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible labor I made
them undergo. They could not perceive, so they said, what good
was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin, merely
to take a part in such horrible incantations. I began to get
uneasy, and worked away with all my might, for I verily believe
the idiots supposed that I had entered into a compact with the
devil, and that, in short, what I was now doing was nothing
better than it should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of
their leaving me altogether. I contrived, however, to pacify them
by promises of payment of all scores in full, as soon as I could
bring the present business to a termination. To these speeches
they gave, of course, their own interpretation; fancying, no
doubt, that at all events I should come into possession of vast
quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I owed,
and a trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say
they cared very little what became of either my soul or my
carcass.
“In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
inflated. I attached the car, therefore, and put all my
implements in it—not forgetting the condensing apparatus, a
copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such
as pemmican, in which much nutriment is contained in
comparatively little bulk. I also secured in the car a pair of
pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it
high time to take my departure. Dropping a lighted cigar on the
ground, as if by accident, I took the opportunity, in stooping to
pick it up, of igniting privately the piece of slow match, whose
end, as I said before, protruded a very little beyond the lower
rim of one of the smaller casks. This manoeuvre was totally
unperceived on the part of the three duns; and, jumping into the
car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the
earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward, carrying with
all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden ballast,
and able to have carried up as many more.
“Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards,
when, roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and
tumultuous manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke,
and sulphur, and legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and
blazing metal, that my very heart sunk within me, and I fell down
in the bottom of the car, trembling with unmitigated terror.
Indeed, I now perceived that I had entirely overdone the
business, and that the main consequences of the shock were yet to
be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a second, I felt all
the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and immediately
thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst
abruptly through the night and seemed to rip the very firmament
asunder. When I afterward had time for reflection, I did not fail
to attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded
myself, to its proper cause—my situation directly above it, and
in the line of its greatest power. But at the time, I thought
only of preserving my life. The balloon at first collapsed, then
furiously expanded, then whirled round and round with horrible
velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering like a drunken man,
hurled me with great force over the rim of the car, and left me
dangling, at a terrific height, with my head downward, and my
face outwards, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in
length, which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom
of the wicker-work, and in which, as I fell, my left foot became
most providentially entangled. It is impossible—utterly
impossible—to form any adequate idea of the horror of my
situation. I gasped convulsively for breath—a shudder resembling
a fit of the ague agitated every nerve and muscle of my frame—I
felt my eyes starting from their sockets—a horrible nausea
overwhelmed me—and at length I fainted away.
“How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It
must, however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I
partially recovered the sense of existence, I found the day
breaking, the balloon at a prodigious height over a wilderness of
ocean, and not a trace of land to be discovered far and wide
within the limits of the vast horizon. My sensations, however,
upon thus recovering, were by no means so rife with agony as
might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was much of incipient
madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my situation.
I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other, and
wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
the veins, and the horrible blackness of the fingernails. I
afterward carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly, and
feeling it with minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying
myself that it was not, as I had more than half suspected, larger
than my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I felt in both my
breeches pockets, and, missing therefrom a set of tablets and a
toothpick case, endeavored to account for their disappearance,
and not being able to do so, felt inexpressibly chagrined. It now
occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of
my left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to
glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither
astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it
was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was
about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I
never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question
susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the
profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of
frequently compressing my lips, putting my forefinger to the side
of my nose, and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces
common to men who, at ease in their arm-chairs, meditate upon
matters of intricacy or importance. Having, as I thought,
sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great caution and
deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and unfastened the
large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth, which, being
somewhat rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I
brought them, however, after some trouble, at right angles to the
body of the buckle, and was glad to find them remain firm in that
position. Holding the instrument thus obtained within my teeth, I
now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to rest
several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it
was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made
fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,
tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upwards, with a
prodigious exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very
first trial, in throwing the buckle over the car, and entangling
it, as I had anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.
“My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an
angle of about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood
that I was therefore only forty-five degrees below the
perpendicular. So far from it, I still lay nearly level with the
plane of the horizon; for the change of situation which I had
acquired, had forced the bottom of the car considerably outwards
from my position, which was accordingly one of the most imminent
and deadly peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I
fell in the first instance, from the car, if I had fallen with my
face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from
it, as it actually was; or if, in the second place, the cord by
which I was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge,
instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car,—I say it
may be readily conceived that, in either of these supposed cases,
I should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now
accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would
have been utterly lost to posterity, I had therefore every reason
to be grateful; although, in point of fact, I was still too
stupid to be anything at all, and hung for, perhaps, a quarter of
an hour in that extraordinary manner, without making the
slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly
tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not
fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and
dismay, and a chilling sense of utter helplessness and ruin. In
fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head
and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with
madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within their proper
channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my
perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me of the
self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness
was, luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came
to my rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and
struggles, I jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length,
clutching with a vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed
my person over it, and fell headlong and shuddering within the
car.
“It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I
then, however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my
great relief, uninjured. My implements were all safe, and,
fortunately, I had lost neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I
had so well secured them in their places, that such an accident
was entirely out of the question. Looking at my watch, I found it
six o’clock. I was still rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave
a present altitude of three and three-quarter miles. Immediately
beneath me in the ocean, lay a small black object, slightly
oblong in shape, seemingly about the size, and in every way
bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys called
a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon it, I plainly
discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship, close-hauled,
and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the W.S.W.
Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and
the sun, which had long arisen.
“It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies
the object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in
mind that distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length
driven me to the resolution of committing suicide. It was not,
however, that to life itself I had any positive disgust, but that
I was harassed beyond endurance by the adventitious miseries
attending my situation. In this state of mind, wishing to live,
yet wearied with life, the treatise at the stall of the
bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I then finally
made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet live—to leave the
world, yet continue to exist—in short, to drop enigmas, I
resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could,
to the moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than
I actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the
considerations which led me to believe that an achievement of
this nature, although without doubt difficult, and incontestably
full of danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond the
confines of the possible.
“The moon’s actual distance from the earth was the first thing to
be attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the
centres of the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth’s equatorial
radii, or only about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average
interval, but it must be borne in mind that the form of the
moon’s orbit being an ellipse of eccentricity amounting to no
less than 0.05484 of the major semi-axis of the ellipse itself,
and the earth’s centre being situated in its focus, if I could,
in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as it were, in its
perigee, the above mentioned distance would be materially
diminished. But, to say nothing at present of this possibility,
it was very certain that, at all events, from the 237,000 miles I
would have to deduct the radius of the earth, say 4,000, and the
radius of the moon, say 1,080, in all 5,080, leaving an actual
interval to be traversed, under average circumstances, of 231,920
miles. Now this, I reflected, was no very extraordinary distance.
Travelling on land has been repeatedly accomplished at the rate
of thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much greater speed may be
anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would take me no more
than 322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There were,
however, many particulars inducing me to believe that my average
rate of travelling might possibly very much exceed that of thirty
miles per hour, and, as these considerations did not fail to make
a deep impression upon my mind, I will mention them more fully
hereafter.
“The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater
importance. From indications afforded by the barometer, we find
that, in ascensions from the surface of the earth we have, at the
height of 1,000 feet, left below us about one-thirtieth of the
entire mass of atmospheric air, that at 10,600 we have ascended
through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not far
from the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the
material, or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body of air
incumbent upon our globe. It is also calculated that at an
altitude not exceeding the hundredth part of the earth’s
diameter—that is, not exceeding eighty miles—the rarefaction
would be so excessive that animal life could in no manner be
sustained, and, moreover, that the most delicate means we possess
of ascertaining the presence of the atmosphere would be
inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I did not fail to
perceive that these latter calculations are founded altogether on
our experimental knowledge of the properties of air, and the
mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in what
may be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of
the earth itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted
that animal life is and must be essentially incapable of
modification at any given unattainable distance from the surface.
Now, all such reasoning and from such data must, of course, be
simply analogical. The greatest height ever reached by man was
that of 25,000 feet, attained in the aeronautic expedition of
Messieurs Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a moderate altitude, even
when compared with the eighty miles in question; and I could not
help thinking that the subject admitted room for doubt and great
latitude for speculation.
“But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given
altitude, the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any
farther ascension is by no means in proportion to the additional
height ascended (as may be plainly seen from what has been stated
before), but in a ratio constantly decreasing. It is therefore
evident that, ascend as high as we may, we cannot, literally
speaking, arrive at a limit beyond which no atmosphere is to be
found. It must exist, I argued; although it may exist in a state
of infinite rarefaction.
“On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been
wanting to prove the existence of a real and definite limit to
the atmosphere, beyond which there is absolutely no air
whatsoever. But a circumstance which has been left out of view by
those who contend for such a limit seemed to me, although no
positive refutation of their creed, still a point worthy very
serious investigation. On comparing the intervals between the
successive arrivals of Encke’s comet at its perihelion, after
giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all the disturbances
due to the attractions of the planets, it appears that the
periods are gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major axis
of the comet’s ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but
perfectly regular decrease. Now, this is precisely what ought to
be the case, if we suppose a resistance experienced from the
comet from an extremely rare ethereal medium pervading the
regions of its orbit. For it is evident that such a medium must,
in retarding the comet’s velocity, increase its centripetal, by
weakening its centrifugal force. In other words, the sun’s
attraction would be constantly attaining greater power, and the
comet would be drawn nearer at every revolution. Indeed, there is
no other way of accounting for the variation in question. But
again:—The real diameter of the same comet’s nebulosity is
observed to contract rapidly as it approaches the sun, and dilate
with equal rapidity in its departure towards its aphelion. Was I
not justifiable in supposing with M. Valz, that this apparent
condensation of volume has its origin in the compression of the
same ethereal medium I have spoken of before, and which is only
denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The lenticular-shaped
phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light, was a matter worthy
of attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics, and
which cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from
the horizon obliquely upward, and follows generally the direction
of the sun’s equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature
of a rare atmosphere extending from the sun outward, beyond the
orbit of Venus at least, and I believed indefinitely farther.(*2)
Indeed, this medium I could not suppose confined to the path of
the comet’s ellipse, or to the immediate neighborhood of the sun.
It was easy, on the contrary, to imagine it pervading the entire
regions of our planetary system, condensed into what we call
atmosphere at the planets themselves, and perhaps at some of them
modified by considerations, so to speak, purely geological.
“Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further
hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with
atmosphere essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I
conceived that, by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M.
Grimm, I should readily be enabled to condense it in sufficient
quantity for the purposes of respiration. This would remove the
chief obstacle in a journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some
money and great labor in adapting the apparatus to the object
intended, and confidently looked forward to its successful
application, if I could manage to complete the voyage within any
reasonable period. This brings me back to the rate at which it
might be possible to travel.
“It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions
from the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively
moderate. Now, the power of elevation lies altogether in the
superior lightness of the gas in the balloon compared with the
atmospheric air; and, at first sight, it does not appear probable
that, as the balloon acquires altitude, and consequently arrives
successively in atmospheric strata of densities rapidly
diminishing—I say, it does not appear at all reasonable that, in
this its progress upwards, the original velocity should be
accelerated. On the other hand, I was not aware that, in any
recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the absolute
rate of ascent; although such should have been the case, if on
account of nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through
balloons ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material
than the ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect
of such escape was only sufficient to counterbalance the effect
of some accelerating power. I now considered that, provided in my
passage I found the medium I had imagined, and provided that it
should prove to be actually and essentially what we denominate
atmospheric air, it could make comparatively little difference at
what extreme state of rarefaction I should discover it—that is to
say, in regard to my power of ascending—for the gas in the
balloon would not only be itself subject to rarefaction partially
similar (in proportion to the occurrence of which, I could suffer
an escape of so much as would be requisite to prevent explosion),
but, being what it was, would, at all events, continue
specifically lighter than any compound whatever of mere nitrogen
and oxygen. In the meantime, the force of gravitation would be
constantly diminishing, in proportion to the squares of the
distances, and thus, with a velocity prodigiously accelerating, I
should at length arrive in those distant regions where the force
of the earth’s attraction would be superseded by that of the
moon. In accordance with these ideas, I did not think it worth
while to encumber myself with more provisions than would be
sufficient for a period of forty days.
“There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned
me some little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in
balloon ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain
attending respiration, great uneasiness is experienced about the
head and body, often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and
other symptoms of an alarming kind, and growing more and more
inconvenient in proportion to the altitude attained.(*3) This was
a reflection of a nature somewhat startling. Was it not probable
that these symptoms would increase indefinitely, or at least
until terminated by death itself? I finally thought not. Their
origin was to be looked for in the progressive removal of the
customary atmospheric pressure upon the surface of the body, and
consequent distention of the superficial blood-vessels—not in any
positive disorganization of the animal system, as in the case of
difficulty in breathing, where the atmospheric density is
chemically insufficient for the due renovation of blood in a
ventricle of the heart. Unless for default of this renovation, I
could see no reason, therefore, why life could not be sustained
even in a vacuum; for the expansion and compression of chest,
commonly called breathing, is action purely muscular, and the
cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I conceived
that, as the body should become habituated to the want of
atmospheric pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually
diminish—and to endure them while they continued, I relied with
confidence upon the iron hardihood of my constitution.
“Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some,
though by no means all, the considerations which led me to form
the project of a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before
you the result of an attempt so apparently audacious in
conception, and, at all events, so utterly unparalleled in the
annals of mankind.
“Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say
three miles and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a
quantity of feathers, and found that I still ascended with
sufficient rapidity; there was, therefore, no necessity for
discharging any ballast. I was glad of this, for I wished to
retain with me as much weight as I could carry, for reasons which
will be explained in the sequel. I as yet suffered no bodily
inconvenience, breathing with great freedom, and feeling no pain
whatever in the head. The cat was lying very demurely upon my
coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons with an air
of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to prevent
their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains of
rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.
“At twenty minutes past six o’clock, the barometer showed an
elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The
prospect seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated
by means of spherical geometry, what a great extent of the
earth’s area I beheld. The convex surface of any segment of a
sphere is, to the entire surface of the sphere itself, as the
versed sine of the segment to the diameter of the sphere. Now, in
my case, the versed sine—that is to say, the thickness of the
segment beneath me—was about equal to my elevation, or the
elevation of the point of sight above the surface. ‘As five
miles, then, to eight thousand,’ would express the proportion of
the earth’s area seen by me. In other words, I beheld as much as
a sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The
sea appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the
spy-glass, I could perceive it to be in a state of violent
agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having drifted away,
apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at
intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about the
ears—still, however, breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat
and pigeons seemed to suffer no inconvenience whatsoever.
“At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long
series of dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging
my condensing apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to
be sure, a singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible
that a cloud of this nature could be sustained at so great an
elevation. I thought it best, however, to throw out two
five-pound pieces of ballast, reserving still a weight of one
hundred and sixty-five pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above
the difficulty, and perceived immediately, that I had obtained a
great increase in my rate of ascent. In a few seconds after my
leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid lightning shot from one end
of it to the other, and caused it to kindle up, throughout its
vast extent, like a mass of ignited and glowing charcoal. This,
it must be remembered, was in the broad light of day. No fancy
may picture the sublimity which might have been exhibited by a
similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of the night.
Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even as it
was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and
stalk about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and
red ghastly chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had
indeed made a narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very
short while longer within the cloud—that is to say—had not the
inconvenience of getting wet, determined me to discharge the
ballast, inevitable ruin would have been the consequence. Such
perils, although little considered, are perhaps the greatest
which must be encountered in balloons. I had by this time,
however, attained too great an elevation to be any longer uneasy
on this head.
“I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o’clock the barometer
indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I
began to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head,
too, was excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a
moisture about my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood,
which was oozing quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes,
also, gave me great uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them
they seemed to have protruded from their sockets in no
inconsiderable degree; and all objects in the car, and even the
balloon itself, appeared distorted to my vision. These symptoms
were more than I had expected, and occasioned me some alarm. At
this juncture, very imprudently, and without consideration, I
threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of ballast. The
accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained, carried me too rapidly,
and without sufficient gradation, into a highly rarefied stratum
of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly proved fatal to my
expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized with a spasm
which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when this, in a
measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long intervals,
and in a gasping manner—bleeding all the while copiously at the
nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The pigeons
appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to escape;
while the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out
of her mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the
influence of poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness
of which I had been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my
agitation was excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death,
and death in a few minutes. The physical suffering I underwent
contributed also to render me nearly incapable of making any
exertion for the preservation of my life. I had, indeed, little
power of reflection left, and the violence of the pain in my head
seemed to be greatly on the increase. Thus I found that my senses
would shortly give way altogether, and I had already clutched one
of the valve ropes with the view of attempting a descent, when
the recollection of the trick I had played the three creditors,
and the possible consequences to myself, should I return,
operated to deter me for the moment. I lay down in the bottom of
the car, and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far
succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
Having no lancet, however, I was constrained to perform the
operation in the best manner I was able, and finally succeeded in
opening a vein in my right arm, with the blade of my penknife.
The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced a
sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a moderate
basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me entirely.
I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt getting on
my feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as I
could, I lay still for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of
this time I arose, and found myself freer from absolute pain of
any kind than I had been during the last hour and a quarter of my
ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished
in a very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be
positively necessary to make use of my condenser. In the
meantime, looking toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed
away upon my coat, I discovered to my infinite surprise, that she
had taken the opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light
a litter of three little kittens. This was an addition to the
number of passengers on my part altogether unexpected; but I was
pleased at the occurrence. It would afford me a chance of
bringing to a kind of test the truth of a surmise, which, more
than anything else, had influenced me in attempting this
ascension. I had imagined that the habitual endurance of the
atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the cause,
or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a
distance above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer
uneasiness in an equal degree with their mother, I must consider
my theory in fault, but a failure to do so I should look upon as
a strong confirmation of my idea.
“By eight o’clock I had actually attained an elevation of
seventeen miles above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to
me evident that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase,
but that the progression would have been apparent in a slight
degree even had I not discharged the ballast which I did. The
pains in my head and ears returned, at intervals, with violence,
and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose; but,
upon the whole, I suffered much less than might have been
expected. I breathed, however, at every moment, with more and
more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with a
troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the
condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.
“The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was
beautiful indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the
southward, as far as I could see, lay a boundless sheet of
apparently unruffled ocean, which every moment gained a deeper
and a deeper tint of blue and began already to assume a slight
appearance of convexity. At a vast distance to the eastward,
although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of Great
Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a
small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
individual edifices not a trace could be discovered, and the
proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the face
of the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a dim
speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as
the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the
eastward as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of
waters seemed at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the
horizon, and I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of
the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and
the stars were brilliantly visible.
“The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of
them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the
rim of the wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking
anxiously around him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud
cooing noise, but could not be persuaded to trust himself from
off the car. I took him up at last, and threw him to about half a
dozen yards from the balloon. He made, however, no attempt to
descend as I had expected, but struggled with great vehemence to
get back, uttering at the same time very shrill and piercing
cries. He at length succeeded in regaining his former station on
the rim, but had hardly done so when his head dropped upon his
breast, and he fell dead within the car. The other one did not
prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following the example of his
companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him downward with
all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his descent,
with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and in a
perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of
sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who
seemed in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a
hearty meal of the dead bird and then went to sleep with much
apparent satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far
evinced not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.
“At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath
without the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to
adjust around the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser.
This apparatus will require some little explanation, and your
Excellencies will please to bear in mind that my object, in the
first place, was to surround myself and cat entirely with a
barricade against the highly rarefied atmosphere in which I was
existing, with the intention of introducing within this
barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this same
atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of
respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very
strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this
bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a
manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the
whole bottom of the car, up its sides, and so on, along the
outside of the ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work
is attached. Having pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a
complete enclosure on all sides, and at bottom, it was now
necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by passing its material
over the hoop of the net-work—in other words, between the
net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated from
the hoop to admit this passage, what was to sustain the car in
the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently fastened to
the hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I
therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving
the car suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a
portion of the cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I
refastened the loops—not to the hoop, for that would have been
impossible, since the cloth now intervened—but to a series of
large buttons, affixed to the cloth itself, about three feet
below the mouth of the bag, the intervals between the buttons
having been made to correspond to the intervals between the
loops. This done, a few more of the loops were unfastened from
the rim, a farther portion of the cloth introduced, and the
disengaged loops then connected with their proper buttons. In
this way it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the
bag between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the
hoop would now drop down within the car, while the whole weight
of the car itself, with all its contents, would be held up merely
by the strength of the buttons. This, at first sight, would seem
an inadequate dependence; but it was by no means so, for the
buttons were not only very strong in themselves, but so close
together that a very slight portion of the whole weight was
supported by any one of them. Indeed, had the car and contents
been three times heavier than they were, I should not have been
at all uneasy. I now raised up the hoop again within the covering
of gum-elastic, and propped it at nearly its former height by
means of three light poles prepared for the occasion. This was
done, of course, to keep the bag distended at the top, and to
preserve the lower part of the net-work in its proper situation.
All that now remained was to fasten up the mouth of the
enclosure; and this was readily accomplished by gathering the
folds of the material together, and twisting them up very tightly
on the inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.
“In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had
been inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass,
through which I could see without difficulty around me in every
horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth forming the
bottom, was likewise, a fourth window, of the same kind, and
corresponding with a small aperture in the floor of the car
itself. This enabled me to see perpendicularly down, but having
found it impossible to place any similar contrivance overhead, on
account of the peculiar manner of closing up the opening there,
and the consequent wrinkles in the cloth, I could expect to see
no objects situated directly in my zenith. This, of course, was a
matter of little consequence; for had I even been able to place a
window at top, the balloon itself would have prevented my making
any use of it.
“About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular
opening, eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim
adapted in its inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim
was screwed the large tube of the condenser, the body of the
machine being, of course, within the chamber of gum-elastic.
Through this tube a quantity of the rare atmosphere circumjacent
being drawn by means of a vacuum created in the body of the
machine, was thence discharged, in a state of condensation, to
mingle with the thin air already in the chamber. This operation
being repeated several times, at length filled the chamber with
atmosphere proper for all the purposes of respiration. But in so
confined a space it would, in a short time, necessarily become
foul, and unfit for use from frequent contact with the lungs. It
was then ejected by a small valve at the bottom of the car—the
dense air readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere below. To
avoid the inconvenience of making a total vacuum at any moment
within the chamber, this purification was never accomplished all
at once, but in a gradual manner—the valve being opened only for
a few seconds, then closed again, until one or two strokes from
the pump of the condenser had supplied the place of the
atmosphere ejected. For the sake of experiment I had put the cat
and kittens in a small basket, and suspended it outside the car
to a button at the bottom, close by the valve, through which I
could feed them at any moment when necessary. I did this at some
little risk, and before closing the mouth of the chamber, by
reaching under the car with one of the poles before mentioned to
which a hook had been attached.
“By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled
the chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine
o’clock. During the whole period of my being thus employed, I
endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
respiration, and bitterly did I repent the negligence or rather
fool-hardiness, of which I had been guilty, of putting off to the
last moment a matter of so much importance. But having at length
accomplished it, I soon began to reap the benefit of my
invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom and
ease—and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised
to find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent
pains which had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache,
accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distention about the
wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all of which I had
now to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater part of
the uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric pressure had
actually worn off, as I had expected, and that much of the pain
endured for the last two hours should have been attributed
altogether to the effects of a deficient respiration.
“At twenty minutes before nine o’clock—that is to say, a short
time prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury
attained its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I
mentioned before, was one of an extended construction. It then
indicated an altitude on my part of 132,000 feet, or
five-and-twenty miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time
an extent of the earth’s area amounting to no less than the three
hundred-and-twentieth part of its entire superficies. At nine
o’clock I had again lost sight of land to the eastward, but not
before I became aware that the balloon was drifting rapidly to
the N. N. W. The convexity of the ocean beneath me was very
evident indeed, although my view was often interrupted by the
masses of cloud which floated to and fro. I observed now that
even the lightest vapors never rose to more than ten miles above
the level of the sea.
“At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a
handful of feathers through the valve. They did not float as I
had expected; but dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en
masse, and with the greatest velocity—being out of sight in a
very few seconds. I did not at first know what to make of this
extraordinary phenomenon; not being able to believe that my rate
of ascent had, of a sudden, met with so prodigious an
acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the atmosphere was
now far too rare to sustain even the feathers; that they actually
fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity; and that I had
been surprised by the united velocities of their descent and my
own elevation.
“By ten o’clock I found that I had very little to occupy my
immediate attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the
balloon to be going upward with a speed increasing momently
although I had no longer any means of ascertaining the
progression of the increase. I suffered no pain or uneasiness of
any kind, and enjoyed better spirits than I had at any period
since my departure from Rotterdam, busying myself now in
examining the state of my various apparatus, and now in
regenerating the atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point
I determined to attend to at regular intervals of forty minutes,
more on account of the preservation of my health, than from so
frequent a renovation being absolutely necessary. In the
meanwhile I could not help making anticipations. Fancy revelled
in the wild and dreamy regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling
herself for once unshackled, roamed at will among the
ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and unstable land. Now there
were hoary and time-honored forests, and craggy precipices, and
waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into abysses without a
bottom. Then I came suddenly into still noonday solitudes, where
no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast meadows of
poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread themselves out
a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever. Then again I
journeyed far down away into another country where it was all one
dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of clouds. And out of
this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees, like
a wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the shadows of
the trees which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface
where they fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and
commingled with the waves, while from the trunks of the trees
other shadows were continually coming out, and taking the place
of their brothers thus entombed. “This then,” I said
thoughtfully, “is the very reason why the waters of this lake
grow blacker with age, and more melancholy as the hours run on.”
But fancies such as these were not the sole possessors of my
brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most appalling would
too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and shake the
innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of their
possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length of
time to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the
real and palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my
undivided attention.
“At five o’clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the
atmosphere within the chamber, I took that opportunity of
observing the cat and kittens through the valve. The cat herself
appeared to suffer again very much, and I had no hesitation in
attributing her uneasiness chiefly to a difficulty in breathing;
but my experiment with the kittens had resulted very strangely. I
had expected, of course, to see them betray a sense of pain,
although in a less degree than their mother, and this would have
been sufficient to confirm my opinion concerning the habitual
endurance of atmospheric pressure. But I was not prepared to find
them, upon close examination, evidently enjoying a high degree of
health, breathing with the greatest ease and perfect regularity,
and evincing not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever. I
could only account for all this by extending my theory, and
supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere around might
perhaps not be, as I had taken for granted, chemically
insufficient for the purposes of life, and that a person born in
such a medium might, possibly, be unaware of any inconvenience
attending its inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser
strata near the earth, he might endure tortures of a similar
nature to those I had so lately experienced. It has since been to
me a matter of deep regret that an awkward accident, at this
time, occasioned me the loss of my little family of cats, and
deprived me of the insight into this matter which a continued
experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand through the
valve, with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeves of my
shirt became entangled in the loop which sustained the basket,
and thus, in a moment, loosened it from the bottom. Had the whole
actually vanished into air, it could not have shot from my sight
in a more abrupt and instantaneous manner. Positively, there
could not have intervened the tenth part of a second between the
disengagement of the basket and its absolute and total
disappearance with all that it contained. My good wishes followed
it to the earth, but of course, I had no hope that either cat or
kittens would ever live to tell the tale of their misfortune.
“At six o’clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth’s
visible area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which
continued to advance with great rapidity, until, at five minutes
before seven, the whole surface in view was enveloped in the
darkness of night. It was not, however, until long after this
time that the rays of the setting sun ceased to illumine the
balloon; and this circumstance, although of course fully
anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal of
pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold
the rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of
Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the
eastward, and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height
ascended, would I enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and a
longer period. I now determined to keep a journal of my passage,
reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours continuously,
without taking into consideration the intervals of darkness.
“At ten o’clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the
rest of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which,
obvious as it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very
moment of which I am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I
proposed, how could the atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated
in the interim? To breathe it for more than an hour, at the
farthest, would be a matter of impossibility, or, if even this
term could be extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous
consequences might ensue. The consideration of this dilemma gave
me no little disquietude; and it will hardly be believed, that,
after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon this
business in so serious a light, as to give up all hope of
accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to
the necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only
momentary. I reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom,
and that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed
essentially important, which are only so at all by his having
rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do
without sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no
inconvenience from being awakened at intervals of an hour during
the whole period of my repose. It would require but five minutes
at most to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner, and
the only real difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing
myself at the proper moment for so doing. But this was a question
which, I am willing to confess, occasioned me no little trouble
in its solution. To be sure, I had heard of the student who, to
prevent his falling asleep over his books, held in one hand a
ball of copper, the din of whose descent into a basin of the same
metal on the floor beside his chair, served effectually to
startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be overcome with
drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different indeed, and
left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish to keep
awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of
time. I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple
as it may seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as
an invention fully equal to that of the telescope, the
steam-engine, or the art of printing itself.
“It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation
now attained, continued its course upward with an even and
undeviating ascent, and the car consequently followed with a
steadiness so perfect that it would have been impossible to
detect in it the slightest vacillation whatever. This
circumstance favored me greatly in the project I now determined
to adopt. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs
containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely around the
interior of the car. I unfastened one of these, and taking two
ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the wicker-work from
one side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and
parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the
keg, and steadied it in a horizontal position. About eight inches
immediately below these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of
the car I fastened another shelf—but made of thin plank, being
the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf, and
exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small earthern
pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg
over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a
tapering or conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out,
as might happen, until, after a few experiments, it arrived at
that exact degree of tightness, at which the water, oozing from
the hole, and falling into the pitcher below, would fill the
latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. This, of
course, was a matter briefly and easily ascertained, by noticing
the proportion of the pitcher filled in any given time. Having
arranged all this, the rest of the plan is obvious. My bed was so
contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring my head, in
lying down, immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was
evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting
full, would be forced to run over, and to run over at the mouth,
which was somewhat lower than the rim. It was also evident, that
the water thus falling from a height of more than four feet,
could not do otherwise than fall upon my face, and that the sure
consequences would be, to waken me up instantaneously, even from
the soundest slumber in the world.
“It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these
arrangements, and I immediately betook myself to bed, with full
confidence in the efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter
was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused
by my trusty chronometer, when, having emptied the pitcher into
the bung-hole of the keg, and performed the duties of the
condenser, I retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to
my slumber caused me even less discomfort than I had anticipated;
and when I finally arose for the day, it was seven o’clock, and
the sun had attained many degrees above the line of my horizon.
“April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and
the earth’s apparent convexity increased in a material degree.
Below me in the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which
undoubtedly were islands. Far away to the northward I perceived a
thin, white, and exceedingly brilliant line, or streak, on the
edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing it to
be the southern disk of the ices of the Polar Sea. My curiosity
was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther
to the north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself
placed directly above the Pole itself. I now lamented that my
great elevation would, in this case, prevent my taking as
accurate a survey as I could wish. Much, however, might be
ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary nature occurred
during the day. My apparatus all continued in good order, and the
balloon still ascended without any perceptible vacillation. The
cold was intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely in an
overcoat. When darkness came over the earth, I betook myself to
bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad daylight all
around my immediate situation. The water-clock was punctual in
its duty, and I slept until next morning soundly, with the
exception of the periodical interruption.
“April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished
at the singular change which had taken place in the appearance of
the sea. It had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue
it had hitherto worn, being now of a grayish-white, and of a
lustre dazzling to the eye. The islands were no longer visible;
whether they had passed down the horizon to the southeast, or
whether my increasing elevation had left them out of sight, it is
impossible to say. I was inclined, however, to the latter
opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was growing more and
more apparent. Cold by no means so intense. Nothing of importance
occurred, and I passed the day in reading, having taken care to
supply myself with books.
“April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising
while nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to
be involved in darkness. In time, however, the light spread
itself over all, and I again saw the line of ice to the
northward. It was now very distinct, and appeared of a much
darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was evidently
approaching it, and with great rapidity. Fancied I could again
distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
westward, but could not be certain. Weather moderate. Nothing of
any consequence happened during the day. Went early to bed.
“April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very
moderate distance, and an immense field of the same material
stretching away off to the horizon in the north. It was evident
that if the balloon held its present course, it would soon arrive
above the Frozen Ocean, and I had now little doubt of ultimately
seeing the Pole. During the whole of the day I continued to near
the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and
materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth’s form being
that of an oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened
regions in the vicinity of the Arctic circle. When darkness at
length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to
pass over the object of so much curiosity when I should have no
opportunity of observing it.
“April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld
what there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole
itself. It was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my
feet; but, alas! I had now ascended to so vast a distance, that
nothing could with accuracy be discerned. Indeed, to judge from
the progression of the numbers indicating my various altitudes,
respectively, at different periods, between six A.M. on the
second of April, and twenty minutes before nine A.M. of the same
day (at which time the barometer ran down), it might be fairly
inferred that the balloon had now, at four o’clock in the morning
of April the seventh, reached a height of not less, certainly,
than 7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. This elevation may
appear immense, but the estimate upon which it is calculated gave
a result in all probability far inferior to the truth. At all
events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the earth’s major
diameter; the entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me like a
chart orthographically projected: and the great circle of the
equator itself formed the boundary line of my horizon. Your
Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the confined
regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic
circle, although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen
without any appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in
themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a
distance from the point of sight, to admit of any very accurate
examination. Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature
singular and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before
mentioned, and which, with slight qualification, may be called
the limit of human discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or
nearly unbroken, sheet of ice continues to extend. In the first
few degrees of this its progress, its surface is very sensibly
flattened, farther on depressed into a plane, and finally,
becoming not a little concave, it terminates, at the Pole itself,
in a circular centre, sharply defined, whose apparent diameter
subtended at the balloon an angle of about sixty-five seconds,
and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was, at all times,
darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere, and
occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable
blackness. Farther than this, little could be ascertained. By
twelve o’clock the circular centre had materially decreased in
circumference, and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely; the
balloon passing over the western limb of the ice, and floating
away rapidly in the direction of the equator.
“April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth’s apparent
diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and
appearance. The whole visible area partook in different degrees
of a tint of pale yellow, and in some portions had acquired a
brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view downward was also
considerably impeded by the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of
the surface being loaded with clouds, between whose masses I
could only now and then obtain a glimpse of the earth itself.
This difficulty of direct vision had troubled me more or less for
the last forty-eight hours; but my present enormous elevation
brought closer together, as it were, the floating bodies of
vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course, more and more
palpable in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless, I could easily
perceive that the balloon now hovered above the range of great
lakes in the continent of North America, and was holding a
course, due south, which would bring me to the tropics. This
circumstance did not fail to give me the most heartful
satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled
me with uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it
much longer, there would have been no possibility of my arriving
at the moon at all, whose orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at
only the small angle of 5° 8′ 48″.
“April 9th. To-day the earth’s diameter was greatly diminished,
and the color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of
yellow. The balloon kept steadily on her course to the southward,
and arrived, at nine P.M., over the northern edge of the Mexican
Gulf.
“April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five
o’clock this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound,
for which I could in no manner account. It was of very brief
duration, but, while it lasted resembled nothing in the world of
which I had any previous experience. It is needless to say that I
became excessively alarmed, having, in the first instance,
attributed the noise to the bursting of the balloon. I examined
all my apparatus, however, with great attention, and could
discover nothing out of order. Spent a great part of the day in
meditating upon an occurrence so extraordinary, but could find no
means whatever of accounting for it. Went to bed dissatisfied,
and in a state of great anxiety and agitation.
“April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent
diameter of the earth, and a considerable increase, now
observable for the first time, in that of the moon itself, which
wanted only a few days of being full. It now required long and
excessive labor to condense within the chamber sufficient
atmospheric air for the sustenance of life.
“April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the
direction of the balloon, and although fully anticipated,
afforded me the most unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its
former course, about the twentieth parallel of southern latitude,
it turned off suddenly, at an acute angle, to the eastward, and
thus proceeded throughout the day, keeping nearly, if not
altogether, in the exact plane of the lunar ellipse. What was
worthy of remark, a very perceptible vacillation in the car was a
consequence of this change of route—a vacillation which
prevailed, in a more or less degree, for a period of many hours.
“April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the
loud, crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought
long upon the subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory
conclusion. Great decrease in the earth’s apparent diameter,
which now subtended from the balloon an angle of very little more
than twenty-five degrees. The moon could not be seen at all,
being nearly in my zenith. I still continued in the plane of the
ellipse, but made little progress to the eastward.
“April 14th. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the
earth. To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the
balloon was now actually running up the line of apsides to the
point of perigee—in other words, holding the direct course which
would bring it immediately to the moon in that part of its orbit
the nearest to the earth. The moon itself was directly overhead,
and consequently hidden from my view. Great and long-continued
labor necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.
“April 15th. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could
now be traced upon the earth with anything approaching
distinctness. About twelve o’clock I became aware, for the third
time, of that appalling sound which had so astonished me before.
It now, however, continued for some moments, and gathered
intensity as it continued. At length, while, stupefied and
terror-stricken, I stood in expectation of I knew not what
hideous destruction, the car vibrated with excessive violence,
and a gigantic and flaming mass of some material which I could
not distinguish, came with a voice of a thousand thunders,
roaring and booming by the balloon. When my fears and
astonishment had in some degree subsided, I had little difficulty
in supposing it to be some mighty volcanic fragment ejected from
that world to which I was so rapidly approaching, and, in all
probability, one of that singular class of substances
occasionally picked up on the earth, and termed meteoric stones
for want of a better appellation.
“April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through
each of the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great
delight, a very small portion of the moon’s disk protruding, as
it were, on all sides beyond the huge circumference of the
balloon. My agitation was extreme; for I had now little doubt of
soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed, the labor
now required by the condenser had increased to a most oppressive
degree, and allowed me scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep
was a matter nearly out of the question. I became quite ill, and
my frame trembled with exhaustion. It was impossible that human
nature could endure this state of intense suffering much longer.
During the now brief interval of darkness a meteoric stone again
passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of these phenomena began
to occasion me much apprehension.
“April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will
be remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an
angular breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this
had greatly diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable
decrease was observable; and, on retiring on the night of the
sixteenth, I had noticed an angle of no more than about seven
degrees and fifteen minutes. What, therefore, must have been my
amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber, on
the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface
beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully augmented in volume, as to
subtend no less than thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular
diameter! I was thunderstruck! No words can give any adequate
idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and astonishment, with
which I was seized possessed, and altogether overwhelmed. My
knees tottered beneath me—my teeth chattered—my hair started up
on end. ‘The balloon, then, had actually burst!’ These were the
first tumultuous ideas that hurried through my mind: ‘The balloon
had positively burst!—I was falling—falling with the most
impetuous, the most unparalleled velocity! To judge by the
immense distance already so quickly passed over, it could not be
more than ten minutes, at the farthest, before I should meet the
surface of the earth, and be hurled into annihilation!’ But at
length reflection came to my relief. I paused; I considered; and
I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not in any
reason have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was
evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed
by no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so
horribly conceived. This consideration served to calm the
perturbation of my mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the
phenomenon in its proper point of view. In fact, amazement must
have fairly deprived me of my senses, when I could not see the
vast difference, in appearance, between the surface below me, and
the surface of my mother earth. The latter was indeed over my
head, and completely hidden by the balloon, while the moon—the
moon itself in all its glory—lay beneath me, and at my feet.
“The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this
extraordinary change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after
all, that part of the adventure least susceptible of explanation.
For the bouleversement in itself was not only natural and
inevitable, but had been long actually anticipated as a
circumstance to be expected whenever I should arrive at that
exact point of my voyage where the attraction of the planet
should be superseded by the attraction of the satellite—or, more
precisely, where the gravitation of the balloon toward the earth
should be less powerful than its gravitation toward the moon. To
be sure I arose from a sound slumber, with all my senses in
confusion, to the contemplation of a very startling phenomenon,
and one which, although expected, was not expected at the moment.
The revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an
easy and gradual manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I
even been awake at the time of the occurrence, I should have been
made aware of it by any internal evidence of an inversion—that is
to say, by any inconvenience or disarrangement, either about my
person or about my apparatus.
“It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of
my situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed
every faculty of my soul, my attention was, in the first place,
wholly directed to the contemplation of the general physical
appearance of the moon. It lay beneath me like a chart—and
although I judged it to be still at no inconsiderable distance,
the indentures of its surface were defined to my vision with a
most striking and altogether unaccountable distinctness. The
entire absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river,
or body of water whatsoever, struck me, at first glance, as the
most extraordinary feature in its geological condition. Yet,
strange to say, I beheld vast level regions of a character
decidedly alluvial, although by far the greater portion of the
hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic
mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of
artificial than of natural protuberance. The highest among them
does not exceed three and three-quarter miles in perpendicular
elevation; but a map of the volcanic districts of the Campi
Phlegraei would afford to your Excellencies a better idea of
their general surface than any unworthy description I might think
proper to attempt. The greater part of them were in a state of
evident eruption, and gave me fearfully to understand their fury
and their power, by the repeated thunders of the miscalled
meteoric stones, which now rushed upward by the balloon with a
frequency more and more appalling.
“April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon’s
apparent bulk—and the evidently accelerated velocity of my
descent began to fill me with alarm. It will be remembered, that,
in the earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of
a passage to the moon, the existence, in its vicinity, of an
atmosphere, dense in proportion to the bulk of the planet, had
entered largely into my calculations; this too in spite of many
theories to the contrary, and, it may be added, in spite of a
general disbelief in the existence of any lunar atmosphere at
all. But, in addition to what I have already urged in regard to
Encke’s comet and the zodiacal light, I had been strengthened in
my opinion by certain observations of Mr. Schroeter, of
Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a half old, in
the evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was visible,
and continued to watch it until it became visible. The two cusps
appeared tapering in a very sharp faint prolongation, each
exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly illuminated by the
solar rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was visible.
Soon afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This
prolongation of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must
have arisen from the refraction of the sun’s rays by the moon’s
atmosphere. I computed, also, the height of the atmosphere (which
could refract light enough into its dark hemisphere to produce a
twilight more luminous than the light reflected from the earth
when the moon is about 32° from the new) to be 1,356 Paris feet;
in this view, I supposed the greatest height capable of
refracting the solar ray, to be 5,376 feet. My ideas on this
topic had also received confirmation by a passage in the
eighty-second volume of the Philosophical Transactions, in which
it is stated that at an occultation of Jupiter’s satellites, the
third disappeared after having been about 1″ or 2″ of time
indistinct, and the fourth became indiscernible near the
limb.(*4)
“Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an
atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of
course, entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent.
Should I then, after all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in
consequence nothing better to expect, as a finale to my
adventure, than being dashed into atoms against the rugged
surface of the satellite. And, indeed, I had now every reason to
be terrified. My distance from the moon was comparatively
trifling, while the labor required by the condenser was
diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication
whatever of a decreasing rarity in the air.
“April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o’clock,
the surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my
apprehensions excited to the utmost, the pump of my condenser at
length gave evident tokens of an alteration in the atmosphere. By
ten, I had reason to believe its density considerably increased.
By eleven, very little labor was necessary at the apparatus; and
at twelve o’clock, with some hesitation, I ventured to unscrew
the tourniquet, when, finding no inconvenience from having done
so, I finally threw open the gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it
from around the car. As might have been expected, spasms and
violent headache were the immediate consequences of an experiment
so precipitate and full of danger. But these and other
difficulties attending respiration, as they were by no means so
great as to put me in peril of my life, I determined to endure as
I best could, in consideration of my leaving them behind me
momently in my approach to the denser strata near the moon. This
approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme; and it
soon became alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not
been deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in
proportion to the mass of the satellite, still I had been wrong
in supposing this density, even at the surface, at all adequate
to the support of the great weight contained in the car of my
balloon. Yet this should have been the case, and in an equal
degree as at the surface of the earth, the actual gravity of
bodies at either planet supposed in the ratio of the atmospheric
condensation. That it was not the case, however, my precipitous
downfall gave testimony enough; why it was not so, can only be
explained by a reference to those possible geological
disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all events I
was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the most
terrible impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in
throwing overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my
condensing apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every
article within the car. But it was all to no purpose. I still
fell with horrible rapidity, and was now not more than half a
mile from the surface. As a last resource, therefore, having got
rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from the balloon the
car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and thus,
clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to
observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach,
was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I
tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking
city, and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people,
who none of them uttered a single syllable, or gave themselves
the least trouble to render me assistance, but stood, like a
parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me
and my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo. I turned from
them in contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth so lately left,
and left perhaps for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull, copper
shield, about two degrees in diameter, fixed immovably in the
heavens overhead, and tipped on one of its edges with a crescent
border of the most brilliant gold. No traces of land or water
could be discovered, and the whole was clouded with variable
spots, and belted with tropical and equatorial zones.
“Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great
anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had,
at length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam,
arrived in safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the
most extraordinary, and the most momentous, ever accomplished,
undertaken, or conceived by any denizen of earth. But my
adventures yet remain to be related. And indeed your Excellencies
may well imagine that, after a residence of five years upon a
planet not only deeply interesting in its own peculiar character,
but rendered doubly so by its intimate connection, in capacity of
satellite, with the world inhabited by man, I may have
intelligence for the private ear of the States’ College of
Astronomers of far more importance than the details, however
wonderful, of the mere voyage which so happily concluded. This
is, in fact, the case. I have much—very much which it would give
me the greatest pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of
the climate of the planet; of its wonderful alternations of heat
and cold, of unmitigated and burning sunshine for one fortnight,
and more than polar frigidity for the next; of a constant
transfer of moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo, from
the point beneath the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a
variable zone of running water; of the people themselves; of
their manners, customs, and political institutions; of their
peculiar physical construction; of their ugliness; of their want
of ears, those useless appendages in an atmosphere so peculiarly
modified; of their consequent ignorance of the use and properties
of speech; of their substitute for speech in a singular method of
inter-communication; of the incomprehensible connection between
each particular individual in the moon with some particular
individual on the earth—a connection analogous with, and
depending upon, that of the orbs of the planet and the
satellites, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the
inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and
destinies of the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it
so please your Excellencies—above all, of those dark and hideous
mysteries which lie in the outer regions of the moon—regions
which, owing to the almost miraculous accordance of the
satellite’s rotation on its own axis with its sidereal revolution
about the earth, have never yet been turned, and, by God’s mercy,
never shall be turned, to the scrutiny of the telescopes of man.
All this, and more—much more—would I most willingly detail. But,
to be brief, I must have my reward. I am pining for a return to
my family and to my home; and as the price of any farther
communication on my part—in consideration of the light which I
have it in my power to throw upon many very important branches of
physical and metaphysical science—I must solicit, through the
influence of your honorable body, a pardon for the crime of which
I have been guilty in the death of the creditors upon my
departure from Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the
present paper. Its bearer, an inhabitant of the moon, whom I have
prevailed upon, and properly instructed, to be my messenger to
the earth, will await your Excellencies’ pleasure, and return to
me with the pardon in question, if it can, in any manner, be
obtained.
“I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies’ very humble
servant,
“HANS PFAALL.”
Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,
Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground
in the extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von
Underduk having taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and
deposited them in his pocket, so far forgot both himself and his
dignity, as to turn round three times upon his heel in the
quintessence of astonishment and admiration. There was no doubt
about the matter—the pardon should be obtained. So at least
swore, with a round oath, Professor Rub-a-dub, and so finally
thought the illustrious Von Underduk, as he took the arm of his
brother in science, and without saying a word, began to make the
best of his way home to deliberate upon the measures to be
adopted. Having reached the door, however, of the burgomaster’s
dwelling, the professor ventured to suggest that as the messenger
had thought proper to disappear—no doubt frightened to death by
the savage appearance of the burghers of Rotterdam—the pardon
would be of little use, as no one but a man of the moon would
undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of this
observation the burgomaster assented, and the matter was
therefore at an end. Not so, however, rumors and speculations.
The letter, having been published, gave rise to a variety of
gossip and opinion. Some of the over-wise even made themselves
ridiculous by decrying the whole business; as nothing better than
a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of people, is, I believe, a
general term for all matters above their comprehension. For my
part, I cannot conceive upon what data they have founded such an
accusation. Let us see what they say:
Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial
antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.
Don’t understand at all.
Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of
whose ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his
head, has been missing for several days from the neighboring city
of Bruges.
Well—what of that?
Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little
balloon were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have
been made in the moon. They were dirty papers—very dirty—and
Gluck, the printer, would take his Bible oath to their having
been printed in Rotterdam.
He was mistaken—undoubtedly—mistaken.
Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the drunken villain, and the
three very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no
longer than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the
suburbs, having just returned, with money in their pockets, from
a trip beyond the sea.
Don’t believe it—don’t believe a word of it.
Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which
ought to be generally received, that the College of Astronomers
in the city of Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other
parts of the world,—not to mention colleges and astronomers in
general,—are, to say the least of the matter, not a whit better,
nor greater, nor wiser than they ought to be.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
Notes to Hans Pfaal
(*1) NOTE—Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity
between the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated “Moon-Story”
of Mr. Locke; but as both have the character of _hoaxes_
(although the one is in a tone of banter, the other of downright
earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the same subject, the
moon—moreover, as both attempt to give plausibility by scientific
detail—the author of “Hans Pfaall” thinks it necessary to say, in
_self-defence,_ that his own _jeu d’esprit_ was published in the
“Southern Literary Messenger” about three weeks before the
commencement of Mr. L’s in the “New York Sun.” Fancying a
likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some of the New York
papers copied “Hans Pfaall,” and collated it with the
“Moon-Hoax,” by way of detecting the writer of the one in the
writer of the other.
As many more persons were actually gulled by the “Moon-Hoax” than
would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some
little amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to
point out those particulars of the story which should have been
sufficient to establish its real character. Indeed, however rich
the imagination displayed in this ingenious fiction, it wanted
much of the force which might have been given it by a more
scrupulous attention to facts and to general analogy. That the
public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross
ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an
astronomical nature.
The moon’s distance from the earth is, in round numbers, 240,000
miles. If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens
would bring the satellite (or any distant object), we, of course,
have but to divide the distance by the magnifying or, more
strictly, by the space-penetrating power of the glass. Mr. L.
makes his lens have a power of 42,000 times. By this divide
240,000 (the moon’s real distance), and we have five miles and
five sevenths, as the apparent distance. No animal at all could
be seen so far; much less the minute points particularized in the
story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir John Herschel’s perceiving flowers
(the Papaver rheas, etc.), and even detecting the color and the
shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly before, too, he has
himself observed that the lens would not render perceptible
objects of less than eighteen inches in diameter; but even this,
as I have said, is giving the glass by far too great power. It
may be observed, in passing, that this prodigious glass is said
to have been molded at the glasshouse of Messrs. Hartley and
Grant, in Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and G.‘s establishment had
ceased operations for many years previous to the publication of
the hoax.
On page 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of “a hairy veil” over the
eyes of a species of bison, the author says: “It immediately
occurred to the acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a
providential contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from
the great extremes of light and darkness to which all the
inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected.”
But this cannot be thought a very “acute” observation of the
Doctor’s. The inhabitants of our side of the moon have,
evidently, no darkness at all, so there can be nothing of the
“extremes” mentioned. In the absence of the sun they have a light
from the earth equal to that of thirteen full unclouded moons.
The topography throughout, even when professing to accord with
Blunt’s Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any
other lunar chart, and even grossly at variance with itself. The
points of the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion; the
writer appearing to be ignorant that, on a lunar map, these are
not in accordance with terrestrial points; the east being to the
left, etc.
Deceived, perhaps, by the vague titles, Mare Nubium, Mare
Tranquillitatis, Mare Faecunditatis, etc., given to the dark
spots by former astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into details
regarding oceans and other large bodies of water in the moon;
whereas there is no astronomical point more positively
ascertained than that no such bodies exist there. In examining
the boundary between light and darkness (in the crescent or
gibbous moon) where this boundary crosses any of the dark places,
the line of division is found to be rough and jagged; but, were
these dark places liquid, it would evidently be even.
The description of the wings of the man-bat, on page 21, is but a
literal copy of Peter Wilkins’ account of the wings of his flying
islanders. This simple fact should have induced suspicion, at
least, it might be thought.
On page 23, we have the following: “What a prodigious influence
must our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this
satellite when an embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject
of chemical affinity!” This is very fine; but it should be
observed that no astronomer would have made such remark,
especially to any journal of Science; for the earth, in the sense
intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times larger than
the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the
concluding pages, where, by way of introduction to some
discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical correspondent enters
into a minute schoolboy account of that planet—this to the
“Edinburgh Journal of Science!”
But there is one point, in particular, which should have betrayed
the fiction. Let us imagine the power actually possessed of
seeing animals upon the moon’s surface—what would first arrest
the attention of an observer from the earth? Certainly neither
their shape, size, nor any other such peculiarity, so soon as
their remarkable _situation_. They would appear to be walking,
with heels up and head down, in the manner of flies on a ceiling.
The _real_ observer would have uttered an instant ejaculation of
surprise (however prepared by previous knowledge) at the
singularity of their position; the _fictitious_ observer has not
even mentioned the subject, but speaks of seeing the entire
bodies of such creatures, when it is demonstrable that he could
have seen only the diameter of their heads!
It might as well be remarked, in conclusion, that the size, and
particularly the powers of the man-bats (for example, their
ability to fly in so rare an atmosphere—if, indeed, the moon have
any), with most of the other fancies in regard to animal and
vegetable existence, are at variance, generally, with all
analogical reasoning on these themes; and that analogy here will
often amount to conclusive demonstration. It is, perhaps,
scarcely necessary to add, that all the suggestions attributed to
Brewster and Herschel, in the beginning of the article, about “a
transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
vision,” etc., etc., belong to that species of figurative writing
which comes, most properly, under the denomination of rigmarole.
There is a real and very definite limit to optical discovery
among the stars—a limit whose nature need only be stated to be
understood. If, indeed, the casting of large lenses were all that
is required, man’s ingenuity would ultimately prove equal to the
task, and we might have them of any size demanded. But,
unhappily, in proportion to the increase of size in the lens, and
consequently of space-penetrating power, is the diminution of
light from the object, by diffusion of its rays. And for this
evil there is no remedy within human ability; for an object is
seen by means of that light alone which proceeds from itself,
whether direct or reflected. Thus the only “artificial” light
which could avail Mr. Locke, would be some artificial light which
he should be able to throw—not upon the “focal object of vision,”
but upon the real object to be viewed—to wit: upon the moon. It
has been easily calculated that, when the light proceeding from a
star becomes so diffused as to be as weak as the natural light
proceeding from the whole of the stars, in a clear and moonless
night, then the star is no longer visible for any practical
purpose.
The Earl of Ross’s telescope, lately constructed in England, has
a _speculum_ with a reflecting surface of 4,071 square inches;
the Herschel telescope having one of only 1,811. The metal of the
Earl of Ross’s is 6 feet diameter; it is 5 1/2 inches thick at
the edges, and 5 at the centre. The weight is 3 tons. The focal
length is 50 feet.
I have lately read a singular and somewhat ingenious little book,
whose title-page runs thus: “L’Homme dans la lvne ou le Voyage
Chimerique fait au Monde de la Lvne, nouellement decouvert par
Dominique Gonzales, Aduanturier Espagnol, autrem?t dit le Courier
volant. Mis en notre langve par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez Francois
Piot, pres la Fontaine de Saint Benoist. Et chez J. Goignard, au
premier pilier de la grand’salle du Palais, proche les
Consultations, MDCXLVII.” Pp. 76.
The writer professes to have translated his work from the English
of one Mr. D’Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible
ambiguity in the statement. “J’ en ai eu,” says he “l’original de
Monsieur D’Avisson, medecin des mieux versez qui soient
aujourd’huy dans la cõnoissance des Belles Lettres, et sur tout
de la Philosophic Naturelle. Je lui ai cette obligation entre les
autres, de m’ auoir non seulement mis en main ce Livre en
anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D’Anan,
gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la
version duquel j’ advoue que j’ ay tiré le plan de la mienne.”
After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas,
and which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that,
being ill during a sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together
with a negro servant, on the island of St. Helena. To increase
the chances of obtaining food, the two separate, and live as far
apart as possible. This brings about a training of birds, to
serve the purpose of carrier-pigeons between them. By and by
these are taught to carry parcels of some weight—and this weight
is gradually increased. At length the idea is entertained of
uniting the force of a great number of the birds, with a view to
raising the author himself. A machine is contrived for the
purpose, and we have a minute description of it, which is
materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive the
Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated
astride something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and
borne aloft by a multitude of wild swans _(ganzas)_ who had
strings reaching from their tails to the machine.
The main event detailed in the Signor’s narrative depends upon a
very important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance
until near the end of the book. The _ganzas,_ with whom he had
become so familiar, were not really denizens of St. Helena, but
of the moon. Thence it had been their custom, time out of mind,
to migrate annually to some portion of the earth. In proper
season, of course, they would return home; and the author,
happening, one day, to require their services for a short voyage,
is unexpectedly carried straight tip, and in a very brief period
arrives at the satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things,
that the people enjoy extreme happiness; that they have no _law;_
that they die without pain; that they are from ten to thirty feet
in height; that they live five thousand years; that they have an
emperor called Irdonozur; and that they can jump sixty feet high,
when, being out of the gravitating influence, they fly about with
fans.
I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general _philosophy_ of
the volume.
“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also me and the earth. As to the stars,
_since there was no night where I was, they always had the same
appearance; not brilliant, as usual, but pale, and very nearly like the
moon of a morning. _But few of them were visible, and these ten times
larger (as well as I could judge) than they seem to the inhabitants of
the earth. The moon, which wanted two days of being full, was of a
terrible bigness.
“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it was
calm weather or stormy, I found myself _always immediately between the
moon and the earth._ I_ _was convinced of this for two reasons-because
my birds always flew in a straight line; and because whenever we
attempted to rest, _we were carried insensibly around the globe of the
earth. _For I admit the opinion of Copernicus, who maintains that it
never ceases to revolve _from the east to the west, _not upon the poles
of the Equinoctial, commonly called the poles of the world, but upon
those of the Zodiac, a question of which I propose to speak more at
length here-after, when I shall have leisure to refresh my memory in
regard to the astrology which I learned at Salamanca when young, and
have since forgotten.”
Notwithstanding the blunders italicized, the book is not without
some claim to attention, as affording a naive specimen of the
current astronomical notions of the time. One of these assumed,
that the “gravitating power” extended but a short distance from
the earth’s surface, and, accordingly, we find our voyager
“carried insensibly around the globe,” etc.
There have been other “voyages to the moon,” but none of higher
merit than the one just mentioned. That of Bergerac is utterly
meaningless. In the third volume of the “American Quarterly
Review” will be found quite an elaborate criticism upon a certain
“journey” of the kind in question—a criticism in which it is
difficult to say whether the critic most exposes the stupidity of
the book, or his own absurd ignorance of astronomy. I forget the
title of the work; but the _means_ of the voyage are more
deplorably ill conceived than are even the _ganzas_ of our friend
the Signor Gonzales. The adventurer, in digging the earth,
happens to discover a peculiar metal for which the moon has a
strong attraction, and straightway constructs of it a box, which,
when cast loose from its terrestrial fastenings, flies with him,
forthwith, to the satellite. The “Flight of Thomas O’Rourke,” is
a _jeu d’ esprit_ not altogether contemptible, and has been
translated into German. Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the
gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave rise to
the tale. The “flight” is made on an eagle’s back, from Hungry
Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.
In these various _brochures_ the aim is always satirical; the
theme being a description of Lunarian customs as compared with
ours. In none is there any effort at _plausibility_ in the
details of the voyage itself. The writers seem, in each instance,
to be utterly uninformed in respect to astronomy. In “Hans
Pfaall” the design is original, inasmuch as regards an attempt at
_verisimilitude,_ in the application of scientific principles (so
far as the whimsical nature of the subject would permit), to the
actual passage between the earth and the moon.
(*2) The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called
Trabes. Emicant Trabes quos docos vocant.—Pliny, lib. 2, p. 26.
(*3) Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that
Mr. Green, of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts,
deny the assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a
decreasing inconvenience,—precisely in accordance with the theory
here urged in a mere spirit of banter.
(*4) Hevelius writes that he has several times found, in skies
perfectly clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh
magnitude were conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the
moon, at the same elongation from the earth, and with one and the
same excellent telescope, the moon and its maculae did not appear
equally lucid at all times. From the circumstances of the
observation, it is evident that the cause of this phenomenon is
not either in our air, in the tube, in the moon, or in the eye of
the spectator, but must be looked for in something (an
atmosphere?) existing about the moon.
Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars,
when approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular
figure changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he
found no alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed,
that at some times and not at others, there is a dense matter
encompassing the moon wherein the rays of the stars are
refracted.