A slight side movement brought Michel back towards the padded side; thence he took a bottle and glasses, placed them "in space" before his companions, and, drinking merrily, they saluted the line with a triple hurrah. The influence of these attractions scarcely lasted an hour; the travellers felt themselves insensibly drawn towards the floor, and Barbicane fancied that the conical end of the projectile was varying a little from its normal direction towards the moon. By an inverse motion the base was approaching first; the lunar attraction was prevailing over the terrestrial; the fall towards the moon was beginning, almost imperceptibly as yet, but by degrees the attractive force would become stronger, the fall would be more decided, the projectile, drawn by its base, would turn its cone to the earth, and fall with ever-increasing speed on to the surface of the Selenite continent; their destination would then be attained. Now nothing could prevent the success of their enterprise, and Nicholl and Michel Ardan shared Barbicane's joy. Then they chatted of all the phenomena which had astonished them one after the other, particularly the neutralization of the laws of weight. Michel Ardan, always enthusiastic, drew conclusions which were purely fanciful. "Ah, my worthy friends," he exclaimed, "what progress we should make if on earth we could throw off some of that weight, some of that chain which binds us to her; it would be the prisoner set at liberty; no more fatigue of either arms or legs. Or, if it is true that in order to fly on the earth's surface, to keep oneself suspended in the air merely by the play of the muscles, there requires a strength a hundred and fifty times greater than that which we possess, a simple act of volition, a caprice, would bear us into space, if attraction did not exist." "Just so," said Nicholl, smiling; "if we could succeed in suppressing weight as they suppress pain by anæsthesia, that would change the face of modern society!" "Yes," cried Michel, full of his subject, "destroy weight, and no more burdens!" "Well said," replied Barbicane; "but if nothing had any weight, nothing would keep in its place, not even your hat on your head, worthy Michel; nor your house, whose stones only adhere by weight; not a boat, whose stability on the water is caused only by weight; not even the ocean, whose waves would no longer be equalized by terrestrial attraction; and lastly, not even the _atmosphere,_ whose atoms, being no longer held in their places, would disperse in space!" "That is tiresome," retorted Michel; "nothing like these matter-of-fact people for bringing one back to the bare reality." "But console yourself, Michel," continued Barbicane, "for if no orb exists from whence all laws of weight are banished, you are at least going to visit one where it is much less than on the earth." "The moon?" "Yes, the moon, on whose surface objects weigh six times less than on the earth, a phenomenon easy to prove."