What had become of the resolutions they had discussed so ably
and passed so decidedly a few hours before? _Was the Moon inhabited? No!
Was the Moon habitable? No!_ Yet in the face of all this--or rather as
coolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to--here were the
reckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heaven
and earth in order to get there!
One question more remained to be answered before they played their last
trump, namely: "At what precise moment would the Projectile reach the
neutral point?"
To this Barbican had very little trouble in finding an answer. The time
spent in proceeding from the south pole to the dead point being
evidently equal to the time previously spent in proceeding from the dead
point to the north pole--to ascertain the former, he had only to
calculate the latter. This was easily done. To refer to his notes, to
check off the different rates of velocity at which they had readied the
different parallels, and to turn these rates into time, required only a
very few minutes careful calculation. The Projectile then was to reach
the point of neutral attraction at one o'clock in the morning of
December 8th.
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