Many words, however, are not
required. Look at her present condition: her atmosphere dwindled away to
the lowest ebb; her 'seas' dried up or very nearly so; her waters
reduced to next to nothing; her vegetation, if existing at all, existing
only on the scantiest scale; her transitions from intense heat to
intense cold, as we ourselves can testify, sudden in the extreme; her
nights and her days each nearly 360 hours long. With all this positively
against her and nothing at all that we know of positively for her, I
have very little hesitation in saying that the Moon appears to me to be
absolutely uninhabitable. She seems to me not only unpropitious to the
development of the animal kingdom but actually incapable of sustaining
life at all--that is, in the sense that we usually attach to such a
term."
"That saving clause is well introduced, friend Barbican," said
M'Nicholl, who, seeing no chance of demolishing Ardan, had not yet made
up his mind as to having another little bout with the President. "For
surely you would not venture to assert that the Moon is uninhabitable by
a race of beings having an organization different from ours?"
"That question too, Captain," replied Barbican, "though a much more
difficult one, I shall try to answer.
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