Chapter 22

APRIL 6TH. I 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, which is round but flattened near the poles. 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. I 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 made out. Indeed, I estimated that at four o'clock in the morning of April the seventh the balloon had reached a height of not less than 7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. At all events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the earth's diameter; the entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me like a chart, and the great circle of the equator itself formed the boundary line of my horizon.

APRIL 8TH. I found a sensible diminution in the earth's size, besides a material alteration in its general color and appearance. The whole 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 was somewhat impeded by clouds near the earth, but nevertheless I could easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the great lakes in North America and was holding a course due south which would soon bring me to the tropics. This circumstance did not fail to give me the most heartfelt 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, which revolves around the earth in the plane of the equator.

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 Mexican Gulf.

APRIL 12TH. A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction of the balloon, and, although fully anticipated, afforded me the very greatest 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 moon's path around the earth.

APRIL 13TH. Great decrease in the earth's apparent size. The moon could not be seen at all, being nearly above me. I still continued in the plane of the moon's path, but made little progress eastward.

APRIL 14TH. Extremely rapid decrease in the size of the earth. To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea that the balloon was holding the direct course which would bring it immediately to the moon where it comes nearest the earth. The moon was directly overhead, and consequently hidden from my view. Great and long continued labor was necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.

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 bulk 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 required by the condenser had increased to such a degree that I had scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out of 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.

APRIL 17TH. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be remembered that on the thirteenth the earth had diminished; on the fourteenth, it had still further dwindled; on the fifteenth, a still more rapid decrease was observable; and on retiring for the night of the sixteenth, the earth had shrunk to small size. 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 increased in volume as to seem but a comparatively short distance beneath me! 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 ideas which hurried through my mind. The balloon had burst! I was falling--falling with the most impetuous, the most wonderful velocity! To judge from 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 conceived. This consideration served to calm my mind, and I finally succeeded in looking at the matter 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!

I had indeed arrived at the point where the attraction of the moon had proved stronger than the attraction of the earth, and so the moon now appeared to be below me and I was descending upon it. It lay beneath me like a chart, and I studied it with the deepest attention. The entire absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river, or body of water whatsoever, struck me at the first glance as the most extraordinary feature in its appearance.

APRIL 18TH. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's apparent bulk--and the evidently increased velocity of my descent began to fill me with alarm. I had relied on finding some atmosphere at the moon and on the resistance of this atmosphere to [v]gravitation as affording me a chance to land in safety. Should I prove to have been mistaken about the atmosphere, I had nothing better to expect than to be dashed into atoms against the rugged surface of the earth's [v]satellite. And indeed I had now every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was comparatively trivial, while the labor required by the condenser was diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of a decreasing rarity of the air.

APRIL 19TH. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the surface of the moon being frightfully near and my fears 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 open the car a little and suffered no inconvenience. I finally threw aside 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 rash. But this was forgotten in consideration of other things. My approach was still rapid in the extreme; and it soon became certain that although I had probably not been deceived in the expectation of finding a fairly dense atmosphere, still I had been wrong in supposing that atmosphere dense enough to support the great weight contained in the car of the balloon. I was now close upon the planet and coming down with the most terrible rapidity. 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 speed, 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 sown with small habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastic city and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people. I turned from them, and gazing upward at the earth so lately left, and left perhaps forever, beheld it like a huge, dull copper shield, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead and tipped on one of its edges with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

Describe the balloon Hans constructed. How did he extricate himself from each difficulty he encountered? What characteristic did this show? Note the changes in the appearance of the earth as he made his journey. On what day did he see the North Pole? In what region was he when he saw the moon? What did he find when he reached that body?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

From the Earth to the Moon--Jules Verne. The War of the Worlds--H. G. Wells.

THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS[391-*]

This fanciful tale is taken from Frank R. Stockton's _The Great Stone of Sardis_. In this book the hero, Roland Clewe, is pictured as a scientist who had made many startling discoveries and inventions at his works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile, the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of [v]cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in diameter. The forward end was [v]conical and not solid, being formed of a number of flat steel rings, decreasing in size as they approached the point of the cone. When not in operation these rings did not touch one another, but they could be forced together by pressure on the point of the cone. One day this shell fell from the supports on which it lay, the conical end down, and ploughed its way with terrific force into the earth--how far no one could tell. Clewe determined to descend the hole in search of the shell by means of an electric elevator. Margaret Raleigh, to whom he was engaged, had gone to the seashore, and during her absence, Clewe planned to make his daring venture.

On the day that Margaret left Sardis, Roland began his preparations for descending the shaft. He had so thoroughly considered the machinery and appliances necessary for the undertaking and had worked out all his plans in such detail, in his mind and upon paper, that he knew exactly what he wanted to do. His orders for the great length of chain needed exhausted the stock of several factories, and the engines he obtained were even more powerful than he had intended them to be; but these he could procure immediately, and for smaller ones he would have been obliged to wait.

The circular car which was intended to move up and down the shaft, and the peculiar machinery connected with it, together with the hoisting apparatus, were all made in his works. His skilled artisans labored steadily day and night.

It was ten days before he was ready to make his descent. Margaret was still at the seashore. They had written to each other frequently, but neither had made mention of the great shaft. Even when he was ready to go down, Clewe said nothing to any one of an immediate intention of descending. There was a massive door which covered the mouth of the pit; this he ordered locked and went away.

The next morning he walked into the building a little earlier than was his custom, called for the engineers, and for Bryce, who was to take charge of everything connected with the descent, and announced that he was going down that day.

Bryce and the men who were to assist him looked very serious at this. Indeed, if their employer had been any other man than Roland Clewe, it is possible they might have remonstrated with him; but they knew him, and they said and did nothing more than what was their duty.

The door of the shaft was removed, the car which had hung high above it was lowered to the mouth of the opening, and Roland stepped within it and seated himself. Above him and around him were placed [v]geological tools and instruments of many kinds, a lantern, food, and drink--everything, in fact, which he could possibly be presumed to need upon this extraordinary journey. A telephone was at his side by which he could communicate at any time with the surface of the earth. There were electric bells; there was everything to make his expedition safe and profitable. Finally he gave the word to start the engines; there were no ceremonies, and nothing was said out of the common.

When the conical top of the car had descended below the surface, a steel grating, with holes for the passage of the chains, was let down over the mouth of the shaft, and the downward journey began. In the floor of the car were grated openings, through which Clewe could look downward; but, although the shaft below him was brilliantly illuminated by electric lights placed beneath the car, it failed to frighten him or make him dizzy to look down, for the [v]aperture did not appear to be very far below him. The upper part of the car was partially open, and bright lights shone upon the sides of the shaft.

As he slowly descended, Clewe could see the various [v]strata appearing and disappearing in the order in which he knew them. Not far below the surface he passed cavities which he believed had held water; but there was no water in them now. He had expected these pockets, and had feared that upon their edges might be loosened patches of rock or soil, but everything seemed tightly packed and hard. If anything had been loosened, it had gone down already.

Down, down he went until he came to the eternal rocks, where the inside of the shaft was polished as if it had been made of glass. The air became warmer and warmer, but Clewe knew that the heat would soon decrease. The character of the rocks changed, and he studied them as he went down, continually making notes.

After a time the polished rocky sides of the shaft grew to be of a solemn sameness. Clewe ceased to take notes; he lighted a cigar and smoked. He tried to imagine what he would come to when he reached the bottom; it would be some sort of a cave, he thought, in which his shell had made an opening. He began to imagine what sort of a cave it would be, and how high the roof was from the floor. Clewe then suddenly wondered whether his gardener had remembered what he had told him about the flower-beds in front of the house; he wished certain changes made which Margaret had suggested. He tried to keep his mind on the flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave below. He thought of the danger of coming into some underground body of water, where he would be drowned; but he knew that was a silly idea. If the shell had gone through [v]subterranean reservoirs, the water of these would have run out, and before it reached the bottom of the shaft would have dissipated into mist.

Down, down he went. He looked at his watch; he had been in that car only an hour and a half. Was that possible? He had supposed he was almost at the bottom. Suddenly his mind reverted to the people above and the telephone. Why had not some of them spoken to him? It was shameful! He instantly called Bryce, and his heart leaped with joy when he heard the familiar voice in his ear. Now he talked steadily on for more than an hour. He had his gardener summoned, and told the man all that he wanted done in the flower-beds. He gave many directions in regard to the various operations at the works. There were two or three inventions in which he took particular interest, and of these he talked at great length with Bryce. Suddenly, in the midst of some talk about hollow steel rods, he told Bryce to let the engines run faster; there was no reason why the car should go so slowly.

The windlasses moved with a little more rapidity, and Clewe now turned and looked at an indicator which was placed on the side of the car, a little over his head. This instrument showed the depth to which he had descended, but he had not looked at it before, for if anything would make him nervous, it would be the continual consideration of the depth to which he had descended.

The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one-eighth miles. Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat. He glanced down and saw beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading away at the bottom. Then he turned to speak to Bryce, but to his surprise, he could think of nothing to say. After that he lighted another cigar and sat quietly.

Some minutes passed--he did not know how many--and he looked down through the gratings in the floor of the car. The electric light streamed downward through a deep [v]crevice, which did not now fade away into nothingness, but ended in something dark and glittering. Then, as he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, Clewe saw that it was his automatic shell, lying on its side; only a part of it was visible through the opening of the shaft which he was descending. In an instant, as it seemed to him, the car emerged from the shaft, and he seemed to be hanging in the air--at least there was nothing he could see except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him. But it was impossible that the shell should be lying on the air! He rang to stop the car.

"Anything the matter?" cried Bryce.

"Nothing at all," Clewe replied. "It's all right; I am near the bottom."

In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about him. He was no longer in a shaft; but where was he? Look around on what side he would, he saw nothing but the light going out from his lamps, light which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him. There appeared to be no limit to his vision in any direction. Then he leaned over the side of his car and looked downward. There lay the great shell directly under him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp. Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested upon the solid ground!

After a few moments, Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him. Something seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a winter wind. Then he called to Bryce to let the car descend very slowly. It went down, down, gradually approaching the great shell. When the bottom of the car was within two feet of it, Clewe rang to stop. He looked down at the complicated machine he had worked upon so long, with something like a feeling of affection. This he knew; it was his own. Gazing upon its familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of unreality.

Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the bottom and cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them until they touched the shell. It was firm and solid. Although he knew it must be so, the immovability of the great mass of iron gave him a sudden shock of mysterious fear. How could it be immovable when there was nothing under it--when it rested on air?

But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find out. There certainly could be no danger so long as he clung to the shell.

He cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon the shell. It was not a pleasant surface to stand on, being uneven, with great spiral ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it, clinging to it with his hands. Presently he leaned over to one side and looked beneath him. The shadows of that shell went down, down, down into space, until it made him sick to look at them. He drew back quickly, clutched the shell with his arms, and shut his eyes. He felt as if he were about to drop with it into a measureless depth of atmosphere.

But he soon raised himself. He had not come down there to be frightened, to let his nerves run away with him. He had come to find out things. What was it that this shell rested upon? Seizing two of the ribs with a strong clutch, he let himself hang over the sides of the shell until his feet were level with its lower side. They touched something hard. He pressed them downward; it was very hard. He raised himself and stood upon the substance which supported the shell. It was as solid as any rock. He looked down and saw his shadow stretching far beneath him. It seemed as if he were standing upon [v]petrified air. He put out one foot and moved a little, still holding on to the shell. He walked, as if upon solid air, to the foremost end of the long [v]projectile. It relieved him to turn his thoughts from what was around him to this familiar object. He found its conical end shattered.

After a little he slowly made his way back to the other end of the shell, and now his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the great radiance about him. He thought he could perceive here and there faint signs of long, nearly horizontal lines--lines of different shades of light. Above him, as if it hung in the air, was the round, dark hole through which he had descended.

He rose, took his hands from the shell, and made a few steps. He trod upon a horizontal surface, but in putting one foot forward, he felt a slight incline. It seemed to him, that he was about to slip downward! Instantly he retreated to the shell and clutched it in a sudden frenzy of fear.

Standing thus, with his eyes still wandering, he heard the bell of the telephone ring. Without hesitation he mounted the shell and got into the car. Bryce was calling him.

"Come up," he said. "You have been down there long enough. No matter what you have found, it is time for you to come up."

"All right," said Roland. "You can haul me up, but go very slowly at first."

The car rose. When it reached the orifice in the top of the cave of light, Clewe heard the conical steel top grate slightly as it touched the edge, for the car was still swinging a little from the motion given to it by his entrance; but it soon hung perfectly vertical and went silently up the shaft.

Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft, Roland Clewe took no notice of anything about him. He did not look at the brilliantly lighted interior of the shaft; he paid no attention to his instruments; he did not consult his watch, or glance at the dial which indicated the distance he had traveled. Several times the telephone bell rang, and Bryce inquired how he was getting along; but these questions he answered as briefly as possible, and sat looking down at his knees and seeing nothing.