“Oh, it must be so; it is so!” exclaimed the young midshipman, enthusiastic at the ideal description of his superior.

“I should like to believe it,” answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, who was seldom carried away.  “Unfortunately direct news from the lunar world will always be wanting.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said the midshipman, “but cannot President Barbicane write?”

A roar of laughter greeted this answer.

“Not letters,” answered the young man quickly.  “The post-office has nothing to do with that.”

“Perhaps you mean the telegraph-office?” said one of the officers ironically.

“Nor that either,” answered the midshipman, who would not give in.  “But it is very easy to establish graphic communication with the earth.”

“And how, pray?”

“By means of the telescope on Long’s Peak.  You know that it brings the moon to within two leagues only of the Rocky Mountains, and that it allows them to see objects having nine feet of diameter on her surface.  Well, our industrious friends will construct a gigantic alphabet!  They will write words 600 feet long, and sentences a league long, and then they can send up news!”

The young midshipman, who certainly had some imagination was loudly applauded.  Lieutenant Bronsfield himself was convinced that the idea could have been carried out.  He added that by sending luminous rays, grouped by means of parabolical mirrors, direct communications could also be established—­in fact, these rays would be as visible on the surface of Venus or Mars as the planet Neptune is from the earth.  He ended by saying that the brilliant points already observed on the nearest planets might be signals made to the earth.  But he said, that though by these means they could have news from the lunar world, they could not send any from the terrestrial world unless the Selenites have at their disposition instruments with which to make distant observations.

“That is evident,” answered one of the officers, “but what has become of the travellers?  What have they done?  What have they seen?  That is what interests us.  Besides, if the experiment has succeeded, which I do not doubt, it will be done again.  The Columbiad is still walled up in the soil of Florida.  It is, therefore, now only a question of powder and shot, and every time the moon passes the zenith we can send it a cargo of visitors.”

“It is evident,” answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, “that J.T.  Maston will go and join his friends one of these days.”

“If he will have me,” exclaimed the midshipman, “I am ready to go with him.”

“Oh, there will be plenty of amateurs, and if they are allowed to go, half the inhabitants of the earth will soon have emigrated to the moon!”

This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was kept up till about 1 a.m.  It would be impossible to transcribe the overwhelming systems and theories which were emitted by these audacious minds.  Since Barbicane’s attempt it seemed that nothing was impossible to Americans.  They had already formed the project of sending, not another commission of savants, but a whole colony, and a whole army of infantry, artillery, and cavalry to conquer the lunar world.