“Hurrah for Edgar Poe!” cried the assembly, electrified by the words of the president.

“I have now come to an end of these attempts which I may call purely literary, and quite insufficient to establish any serious communications with the Queen of Night.  However, I ought to add that some practical minds tried to put themselves into serious communication with her.  Some years ago a German mathematician proposed to send a commission of savants to the steppes of Siberia.  There, on the vast plains, immense geometrical figures were to be traced by means of luminous reflectors; amongst others, the square of the hypothenuse, vulgarly called the ‘Ass’s Bridge.’  ‘Any intelligent being,’ said the mathematician, ’ought to understand the scientific destination of that figure.  The Selenites (inhabitants of the moon), if they exist, will answer by a similar figure, and, communication once established, it will be easy to create an alphabet that will allow us to hold converse with the inhabitants of the moon.’  Thus spoke the German mathematician, but his project was not put into execution, and until now no direct communication has existed between the earth and her satellite.  But it was reserved to the practical genius of Americans to put itself into communication with the sidereal world.  The means of doing so are simple, easy, certain, unfailing, and will make the subject of my proposition.”

A hubbub and tempest of exclamations welcomed these words.  There was not one of the audience who was not dominated and carried away by the words of the orator.

“Hear, hear!  Silence!” was heard on all sides.

When the agitation was calmed down Barbicane resumed, in a graver tone, his interrupted speech.

“You know,” said he, “what progress the science of ballistics has made during the last few years, and to what degree of perfection firearms would have been brought if the war had gone on.  You are not ignorant in general that the power of resistance of cannons and the expansive force of powder are unlimited.  Well, starting from that principle, I asked myself if, by means of sufficient apparatus, established under determined conditions of resistance, it would not be possible to send a cannon-ball to the moon!”

At these words an “Oh!” of stupefaction escaped from a thousand panting breasts; then occurred a moment of silence, like the profound calm that precedes thunder.  In fact, the thunder came, but a thunder of applause, cries, and clamour which made the meeting-hall shake again.  The president tried to speak; he could not.  It was only at the end of ten minutes that he succeeded in making himself heard.

“Let me finish,” he resumed coldly.  “I have looked at the question in all its aspects, and from my indisputable calculations it results that any projectile, hurled at an initial speed of twelve thousand yards a second, and directed at the moon, must necessarily reach her.  I have, therefore, the honour of proposing to you, my worthy colleagues, the attempting of this little experiment.”