s and breakable partitions to break the
departing shock. It was filled with provisions for one year, water for
some months, and gas for some days. An automatic apparatus made and gave
out the air necessary for the respiration of the three travellers. At
the same time the Gun Club had a gigantic telescope set up on one of the
highest summits of the Rocky Mountains, through which the projectile
could be followed during its journey through space. Everything was then
ready.

On the 30th of November, at the time fixed, amidst an extraordinary
concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and for the first
time three human beings left the terrestrial globe for the
interplanetary regions with almost the certainty of reaching their goal.

These audacious travellers, Michel Ardan, President Barbicane, and
Captain Nicholl were to accomplish their journey in ninety-seven hours
thirteen minutes and twenty seconds; consequently they could not reach
the lunar disc until the 5th of December, at midnight, at the precise
moment that the moon would be full, and not on the 4th, as some
wrongly-informed newspapers had given out.

But an unexpected circumstance occurred; the detonation produced by the
Columbiad had the immediate effect of disturbing the terrestrial
atmosphere, where an enormous quantity of vapour accumulated. This
phenomenon excited general indignation, for the moon was hidden during
several nights from the eyes of her contemplators.

The worthy J.T. Maston, the greatest friend of the three travellers, set
out for the Rocky Mountains in the company of the Honourable J. Belfast,
director of the Cambridge Observatory, and reached the station of Long's
Peak, where the telescope was set up which brought the moon, apparently,
to within two leagues. The honourable secretary of the Gun Club wished
to observe for himself the vehicle that contained his audacious friends.

The accumulation of clouds in the atmosphere prevented all observation
during the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of December. It was even
thought that no observation could take place before the 3rd of January
in the following year, for the moon, entering her last quarter on the
11th, would after that not show enough of her surface to allow the trace
of the projectile to be followed.

But at last, to the general satisfaction, a strong tempest during the
night between the 11th and 12th of December cleared the atmosphere, and
the half-moon was distinctly