"That is all very well, friend Michel," said he, "but will you inform us where these chickens came from which have mixed themselves up in our concert?" "Those chickens?" "Yes." Indeed, half a dozen chickens and a fine cock were walking about, flapping their wings and chattering. "Ah, the awkward things!" exclaimed Michel. "The oxygen has made them revolt." "But what do you want to do with these chickens?" asked Barbicane. "To acclimatize them in the moon, by Jove!" "Then why did you hide them?" "A joke, my worthy president, a simple joke, which has proved a miserable failure. I wanted to set them free on the lunar continent, without saying anything. Oh, what would have been your amazement on seeing these earthly-winged animals pecking in the lunar fields!" "You rascal, you unmitigated rascal," replied Barbicane, "you do not want oxygen to mount to the head. You are always what _we_ were under the influence of the gas; you are always foolish!" "Ah, who says that we were not wise then?" replied Michel Ardan. After this philosophical reflection, the three friends set about restoring the order of the projectile. Chickens and cock were reinstated in their coup. But whilst proceeding with this operation, Barbicane and his two companions had a most desired perception of a new phenomenon. From the moment of leaving the earth, their own weight, that of the projectile, and the objects it enclosed, had been subject to an increasing diminution. If they could not prove this loss of the projectile, a moment would arrive when it would be sensibly felt upon themselves and the utensils and instruments they used. It is needless to say that a _scale_ would not show this loss; for the weight destined to weigh the object would have lost exactly as much as the object itself; but a spring steelyard for example, the tension of which was independent of the attraction, would have given a just estimate of this loss. We know that the attraction, otherwise called the _weight_, is in proportion to the densities of bodies, and inversely as the squares of the distances. Hence this effect: If the earth had been alone in space, if the other celestial bodies had been suddenly annihilated, the projectile, according to Newton's laws, would weigh less as it got farther from the earth, but without ever losing its weight _entirely_, for the terrestrial attraction would always have made itself felt, at whatever distance.