escort of rays, felt a vague
uneasiness invade their hearts. The "farouche" darkness, so dear to the
pen of Victor Hugo, surrounded them on all sides.

In the meantime they talked about this interminable night, 354 hours, or
nearly 15 days, long, which physical laws have imposed upon the
inhabitants of the moon. Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of
the causes and consequences of this curious phenomenon.

"Curious it certainly is," said he, "for if each hemisphere of the moon
is deprived of solar light for fifteen days, the one over which we are
moving at this moment does not even enjoy, during its long night, a
sight of the brilliantly-lighted earth. In a word, there is no moon,
applying that qualification to our spheroid, except for one side of the
disc. Now, if it was the same upon earth--if, for example, Europe never
saw the moon, and she was only visible at the antipodes--you can figure
to yourselves the astonishment of a European on arriving in Australia."

"They would make the voyage for nothing but to go and see the moon,"
answered Michel.

"Well," resumed Barbicane, "that astonishment is reserved to the
Selenite who inhabits the opposite side of the moon to the earth, a side
for ever invisible to our fellow-beings of the terrestrial globe."

"And which we should have seen," added Nicholl, "if we had arrived here
at the epoch when the moon is new--that is to say, a fortnight later."

"To make amends," resumed Barbicane, "an inhabitant of the visible face
is singularly favoured by Nature to the detriment on the invisible face.
The latter, as you see, has dark nights of 354 hours long, without a ray
of light to penetrate the obscurity. The other, on the contrary, when
the sun, which has lighted him for a fortnight, sets under the horizon,
sees on the opposite horizon a splendid orb rise. It is the earth,
thirteen times larger than that moon which we know--the earth, which is
developed to a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen
times greater, which no atmosphere qualifies; the earth, which only
disappears when the sun reappears."

"A fine sentence," said Michel Ardan; "rather academical perhaps."

"It follows," resumed Barbicane, nowise put out, "that the visible face
of the disc must be very agreeable to inhabit, as it is always lighted
by the sun or the moon."

"But," said Nicholl, "this advantage must be quite compensated by the
unbearable heat which this light must cause."