"
"Exactly so," chimed in M'Nicholl; "it must describe and keep on
describing either a parabola or a hyperbola."
"Precisely," said Barbican; "at a certain velocity it would take a
parabolic curve; with a velocity considerably greater it should describe
a hyperbolic curve."
"I always did like nice corpulent words," said Ardan, trying to laugh;
"bloated and unwieldy, they express in a neat handy way exactly what you
mean. Of course, I know all about the high--high--those high curves, and
those low curves. No matter. Explain them to me all the same. Consider
me most deplorably ignorant on the nature of these curves."
"Well," said the Captain, a little bumptiously, "a parabola is a curve
of the second order, formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane
parallel to one of its sides."
"You don't say so!" cried Ardan, with mouth agape. "Do tell!"
"It is pretty nearly the path taken by a shell shot from a mortar."
"Well now!" observed Ardan, apparently much surprised; "who'd have
thought it? Now for the high--high--bully old curve!"
"The hyperbola," continued the Captain, not minding Ardan's antics, "the
hyperbola is a curve of the second order, formed from the intersection
of a cone by a plane parallel to its axis, or rather parallel to its two
_generatrices_, constituting two separate branches, extending
indefinitely in both directions.
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