nd!

By this time, in fact, the temperature had become so exceedingly cold
that a further encroachment on their little stock of gas could be put
off no longer. The light, of course, they could manage to do without;
but a little heat was absolutely necessary to prevent them from freezing
to death. Fortunately, however, the caloric developed by the Reiset and
Regnault process for purifying the air, raised the internal temperature
of the Projectile a little, so that, with an expenditure of gas much
less than they had expected, our travellers were able to maintain it at
a degree capable of sustaining human life.

By this time, also, all observations through the windows had become
exceedingly difficult. The internal moisture condensed so thick and
congealed so hard on the glass that nothing short of continued friction
could keep up its transparency. But this friction, however laborious
they might regard it at other times, they thought very little of just
now, when observation had become far more interesting and important than
ever.

If the Moon had any atmosphere, our travellers were near enough now to
strike any meteor that might be rushing through it. If the Projectile
itself were floating in it, as was possible, would not such a good
conductor of sound convey to their ears the reflexion of some lunar
echo, the roar of some storm raging among the mountains, the rattling of
some plunging avalanche, or the detonations of some eructating volcano?
And suppose some lunar Etna or Vesuvius was flashing out its fires, was
it not even possible that their eye could catch a glimpse of the lurid
gleam? One or two facts of this kind, well attested, would singularly
elucidate the vexatious question of a lunar atmosphere, which is still
so far from being decided. Full of such thoughts and intensely
interested in them, Barbican, M'Nicholl and Ardan, patient as
astronomers at a transit of Venus, watched steadily at their windows,
and allowed nothing worth noticing to escape their searching gaze.

Ardan's patience first gave out. He showed it by an observation natural
enough, for that matter, to a mind unaccustomed to long stretches of
careful thought:

"This darkness is absolutely killing! If we ever take this trip again,
it must be about the time of the New Moon!"

"There I agree with you, Ardan," observed the Captain. "That would be
just the time to start. The Moon herself, I grant, would be lost in the
solar rays and therefore in