y to honour the American nation," added Michel Ardan, "the only
nation capable of making such an enterprise succeed--the only one that
could have produced a President Barbicane! Ah! now I think of it, now
that all our anxieties are over, what will become of us? We shall be as
dull as stagnant water."

Barbicane and Nicholl made gestures of repudiation.

"But I foresaw this, my friends," resumed Michel Ardan. "You have only
to say the word. I have chess, backgammon, cards, and dominoes at your
disposition. We only want a billiard-table!"

"What?" asked Barbicane, "did you bring such trifles as those?"

"Certainly," answered Michel; "not only for our amusement, but also in
the praiseworthy intention of bestowing them upon Selenite inns."

"My friend," said Barbicane, "if the moon is inhabited its inhabitants
appeared some thousands of years before those of the earth, for it
cannot be doubted that the moon is older than the earth. If, therefore,
the Selenites have existed for thousands of centuries--if their brains
are organised like that of human beings--they have invented all that we
have invented, already, and even what we shall only invent in the lapse
of centuries. They will have nothing to learn from us, and we shall have
everything to learn from them."

"What!" answered Michel, "do you think they have had artists like
Phidias, Michael Angelo, or Raphael?"

"Yes."

"Poets like Homer, Virgil, Milton, Lamartine, and Hugo?"

"I am sure of it."

"Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant?"

"I have no doubt of it."

"_Savants_ like Archimedes, Euclid, Pascal, and Newton?"

"I could swear it."

"Clowns like Arnal, and photographers like--Nadar?"

"I am certain of it."

"Then, friend Barbicane, if these Selenites are as learned as we, and
even more so, why have they not hurled a lunar projectile as far as the
terrestrial regions?"

"Who says they have not done it?" answered Barbicane seriously.

"In fact," added Nicholl, "it would have been easier to them than to us,
and that for two reasons--the first because the attraction is six times
less on the surface of the moon than on the surface of the earth, which
would allow a projectile to go up more easily; secondly the projectile
would only have 8,000 leagues to travel instead of 80,000, which would
require a force of propulsion ten times less."

"Then," resumed Michel, "I repeat--why have they not done it?"

"And I," replied Barbicane,