Error of _theory_ regarding the final
fate of the Projectile, since to make it become the Moon's satellite was
flying in the face of one of the great fundamental laws of Theoretical
Mechanics.
Only one, therefore, the first, of the hypotheses so positively
announced, was capable of realization. The travellers--that is to say if
they still lived--might so combine and unite their own efforts with
those of the Lunar attraction as actually to succeed at last in reaching
the Moon's surface.
Now the travellers, those daring but cool-headed men who knew very well
what they were about, _did_ still live, they _had_ survived the
frightful concussion of the start, and it is to the faithful record of
their wonderful trip in the bullet-car, with all its singular and
dramatic details, that the present volume is devoted. The story may
destroy many illusions, prejudices and conjectures; but it will at least
give correct ideas of the strange incidents to which such an enterprise
is exposed, and it will certainly bring out in strong colors the effects
of Barbican's scientific conceptions, M'Nicholl's mechanical resources,
and Ardan's daring, eccentric, but brilliant and effective combinations.
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