," answered Barbicane, "but not the whole of it. By a certain
movement of liberation, a sort of balancing on its centre, the moon
presents more than the half of her disc to the earth. She is like a
pendulum, the centre of gravity of which is towards the terrestrial
globe, and which oscillates regularly. Whence comes that oscillation?
Because her movement of rotation on her axis is animated with uniform
velocity, whilst her movement of translation, following an elliptical
orb round the earth, is not. At the perigee the velocity of translation
is greater, and the moon shows a certain portion of her western border.
At her apogee the velocity of rotation is greater, and a morsel of her
eastern border appears. It is a strip of about eight degrees, which
appears sometimes on the west, sometimes on the east. The result is,
therefore, that of a thousand parts the moon shows five hundred and
sixty-nine."

"No matter," answered Michel; "if we ever become Selenites, we will
inhabit the visible face. I like light."

"Unless," replied Nicholl, "the atmosphere should be condensed on the
other side, as certain astronomers pretend."

"That is a consideration," answered Michel simply.

In the meantime breakfast was concluded, and the observers resumed their
posts. They tried to see through the dark port-light by putting out all
light in the projectile. But not one luminous atom penetrated the
obscurity.

One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. How was it that though the
projectile had been so near the moon, within a distance of twenty-five
miles, it had not fallen upon her? If its speed had been enormous, he
would have understood why it had not fallen. But with a relatively
slight speed the resistance to lunar attraction could not be explained.
Was the projectile under the influence of some strange force? Did some
body maintain it in the ether? It was henceforth evident that it would
not touch any point upon the moon. Where was it going? Was it going
farther away from or nearer to the disc? Was it carried along in the
gloom across infinitude? How were they to know, how calculate in the
dark? All these questions made Barbicane anxious, but he could not solve
them.

In fact, the invisible orb was there, perhaps, at a distance of some
leagues only, but neither his companions nor he could any longer see it.
If any noise was made on its surface they could not hear it. The air,
that vehicle of transmission, was wanting to convey t