of that long peninsula on the coast of
New Mexico.

The wind had gradually fallen. There was not the slightest movement in
the air. The colours of the corvette hung from the mast motionless and
inert.

The captain, Jonathan Blomsberry, cousin-german to Colonel Blomsberry,
one of the Gun Club members who had married a Horschbidden, the
captain's aunt and daughter of an honourable Kentucky merchant--Captain
Blomsberry could not have wished for better weather to execute the
delicate operation of sounding. His corvette had felt nothing of that
great tempest which swept away the clouds heaped up on the Rocky
Mountains, and allowed the course of the famous projectile to be
observed. All was going on well, and he did not forget to thank Heaven
with all the fervour of a Presbyterian.

The series of soundings executed by the Susquehanna were intended for
finding out the most favourable bottoms for the establishment of a
submarine cable between the Hawaiian Islands and the American coast.

It was a vast project set on foot by a powerful company. Its director,
the intelligent Cyrus Field, meant even to cover all the islands of
Oceania with a vast electric network--an immense enterprise worthy of
American genius.

It was to the corvette Susquehanna that the first operations of sounding
had been entrusted. During the night from the 11th to the 12th of
December she was exactly in north lat. 27 deg. 7' and 41 deg. 37' long., west
from the Washington meridian.

The moon, then in her last quarter, began to show herself above the
horizon.

After Captain Blomsberry's departure, Lieutenant Bronsfield and a few
officers were together on the poop. As the moon appeared their thoughts
turned towards that orb which the eyes of a whole hemisphere were then
contemplating. The best marine glasses could not have discovered the
projectile wandering round the demi-globe, and yet they were all pointed
at the shining disc which millions of eyes were looking at in the same
moment.

"They started ten days ago," then said Lieutenant Bronsfield. "What can
have become of them?"

"They have arrived, sir," exclaimed a young midshipman, "and they are
doing what all travellers do in a new country, they are looking about
them."

"I am certain of it as you say so, my young friend," answered Lieutenant
Bronsfield, smiling.

"Still," said another officer, "their arrival cannot be doubted. The
projectile must have reached the moon at the moment she w