together by
movable rails. Then, in all the stations hung with the same flags,
decorated with the same ornaments, were spread tables uniformly dressed.
At a certain time, severely calculated upon electric clocks which beat
the seconds at the same instant, the inhabitants were invited to take
their places at the same banquet.

During four days, from the 5th to the 9th of January, the trains were
suspended like they are on Sundays upon the railways of the Union, and
all the lines were free.

One locomotive alone, a very fast engine, dragging a state saloon, had
the right of circulating, during these four days, upon the railways of
the United States.

This locomotive, conducted by a stoker and a mechanic, carried, by a
great favour, the Honourable J.T. Maston, Secretary of the Gun Club.

The saloon was reserved for President Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, and
Michel Ardan.

The train left the station of Baltimore upon the whistle of the
engine-driver amidst the hurrahs and all the admiring interjections of
the American language. It went at the speed of eighty leagues an hour.
But what was that speed compared to the one with which the three heroes
had left the Columbiad?

Thus they went from one town to another, finding the population in
crowds upon their passage saluting them with the same acclamations, and
showering upon them the same "bravoes." They thus travelled over the
east of the Union through Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Vermont, Maine, and New Brunswick; north and west through New York,
Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin; south through Illinois, Missouri,
Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana; south-east through Alabama and Florida,
Georgia, and the Carolinas; they visited the centre through Tennessee,
Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana; then after the station of Washington
they re-entered Baltimore, and during four days they could imagine that
the United States of America, seated at one immense banquet, saluted
them simultaneously with the same hurrahs.

This apotheosis was worthy of these heroes, whom fable would have placed
in the ranks of demigods.

And now would this attempt, without precedent in the annals of travels,
have any practical result? Would direct communication ever be
established with the moon? Would a service of navigation ever be founded
across space for the solar world? Will people ever go from planet to
planet, from Jupiter to Mercury, and later on from one star to another,
from the Pol