hdrawn, the plate fell back, and visual communication was
established between interior and exterior.

Michel Ardan knelt upon the glass. It was dark, and seemed opaque.

"Well," cried he, "but where's the earth?"

"There it is," said Barbicane.

"What!" cried Ardan, "that thin streak, that silvery crescent?"

"Certainly, Michel. In four days' time, when the moon is full, at the
very minute we shall reach her, the earth will be new. She will only
appear to us under the form of a slender crescent, which will soon
disappear, and then she will be buried for some days in impenetrable
darkness."

"That the earth!" repeated Michel Ardan, staring at the thin slice of
his natal planet.

The explanation given by President Barbicane was correct. The earth,
looked at from the projectile, was entering her last quarter. She was in
her octant, and her crescent was clearly outlined on the dark background
of the sky. Her light, made bluish by the thickness of her atmosphere,
was less intense than that of the lunar crescent. This crescent then
showed itself under considerable dimensions. It looked like an enormous
arch stretched across the firmament. Some points, more vividly lighted,
especially in its concave part, announced the presence of high
mountains; but they disappeared sometimes under black spots, which are
never seen on the surface of the lunar disc. They were rings of clouds
placed concentrically round the terrestrial spheroid.

However, by dint of a natural phenomenon, identical with that produced
on the moon when she is in her octants, the contour of the terrestrial
globe could be traced. Its entire disc appeared slightly visible through
an effect of pale light, less appreciable than that of the moon. The
reason of this lessened intensity is easy to understand. When this
reflection is produced on the moon it is caused by the solar rays which
the earth reflects upon her satellite. Here it was caused by the solar
rays reflected from the moon upon the earth. Now terrestrial light is
thirteen times more intense than lunar light on account of the
difference of volume in the two bodies. Hence it follows that in the
phenomenon of the pale light the dark part of the earth's disc is less
clearly outlined than that of the moon's disc, because the intensity of
the phenomenon is in proportion to the lighting power of the two stars.
It must be added that the terrestrial crescent seems to form a more
elongated curve than that of