extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion, and
in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.

This feeling, however, did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
succeeded horror and dismay, and a sense of utter helplessness and ruin.
In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head and
throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with delirium, had
now begun to retire within its proper channels, and the distinctness
which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to
deprive me of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this
weakness was, luckily for me, of no very great duration. In good time
came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and with frantic cries and
struggles, I jerked my body upward, till, at length, clutching with a
vice-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it and
fell headlong and shuddering within the car.

When I had recovered from the weakness caused by being so long in that
position and the horror from which I had suffered, I found that all my
implements were in place and that neither ballast nor provisions had
been lost.

It is now high time that I should explain the object of my voyage. I had
been harassed for long by poverty and creditors. In this state of mind,
wishing to live and yet wearied with life, my deep studies in astronomy
opened a resource to my imagination. I determined to depart, yet
live--to leave the world, yet continue to exist--in short, to be plain,
I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the
moon.

This was not so mad as it seems. The moon's actual distance from the
earth was the first thing to be attended to. The mean or average
interval between the centers of the two planets is only about 237,000
miles. But at certain times the moon and earth are much nearer than at
others, and if I could contrive to meet the moon at the moment when it
was nearest earth, the above-mentioned distance would be materially
lessened. But even taking the average distance and deducting the
[v]radius of the earth and the moon, the actual interval to be traversed
under average circumstances would be 231,920 miles. Now this, I
reflected, was no very extraordinary distance. Traveling on the land has
been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of sixty miles an hour; and
indeed a much greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this
velocity it would take me no more