fied
their respective distances.

There was nothing to see on the side of the terrestrial globe. The earth
was only a day old, having been new at midnight the day before, and two
days having to go by before her crescent, disengaged from the solar
rays, could serve as a clock to the Selenites, as in her movement of
rotation each of her points always passes the same meridian of the moon
every twenty-four hours.

The spectacle was a different one on the side of the moon; the orb was
shining in all its splendour amidst innumerable constellations, the rays
of which could not trouble its purity. Upon the disc the plains again
wore the sombre tint which is seen from the earth. The rest of the
nimbus was shining, and amidst the general blaze Tycho stood out like a
sun.

Barbicane could not manage any way to appreciate the velocity of the
projectile, but reasoning demonstrated that this speed must be uniformly
diminishing in conformity with the laws of rational mechanics.

In fact, it being admitted that the bullet would describe an orbit round
the moon, that orbit must necessarily be elliptical. Science proves that
it must be thus. No mobile circulation round any body is an exception to
that law. All the orbits described in space are elliptical, those of
satellites round their planets, those of planets around their sun, that
of the sun round the unknown orb that serves as its central pivot. Why
should the projectile of the Gun Club escape that natural arrangement?

Now in elliptical orbits attracting bodies always occupy one of the foci
of the ellipsis. The satellite is, therefore, nearer the body round
which it gravitates at one moment than it is at another. When the earth
is nearest the sun she is at her perihelion, and at her aphelion when
most distant. The moon is nearest the earth at her perigee, and most
distant at her apogee. To employ analogous expressions which enrich the
language of astronomers, if the projectile remained a satellite of the
moon, it ought to be said that it is in its "aposelene" at its most
distant point, and at its "periselene" at its nearest.

In the latter case the projectile ought to attain its maximum of speed,
in the latter its minimum. Now it was evidently going towards its
"aposelene," and Barbicane was right in thinking its speed would
decrease up to that point, and gradually increase when it would again
draw near the moon. That speed even would be absolutely _nil_ if the
point was coe