From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round ItVerne, Jules
Science
From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round It
Verne, Jules
Manned space flight -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
The officer of the port conducted them to the telegraph-office through
a concourse of spectators. Blomsberry and Bronsfield entered, while the
crowd crushed each other at the door.
Some minutes later a fourfold telegram was sent out—the first to the
Naval Secretary at Washington; the second to the Vice-President of the Gun
Club, Baltimore; the third to the Hon. J. T. Maston, Long's Peak, Rocky
Mountains; the fourth to the Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory,
Massachusetts.
It was worded as follows:—
"In 20° 7' north lat., and 41° 37' west long., on the 12th of December,
at 17 past one in the morning, the projectile of the Columbiad fell
into the Pacific. Send instructions.—Blomsberry, Commander
'Susquehanna.'"
Five minutes afterwards the whole town of San Francisco learned the news.
Before six in the evening the different States of the Union had heard
the great catastrophe; and after midnight, by the cable, the whole of
Europe knew the result of the great American experiment.
We will not attempt to picture the effect produced on the entire world
by that unexpected denouement.
On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed to the
Susquehanna to wait in the bay of San Francisco without extinguishing
her fires. Day and night she must be ready to put to sea.
The Cambridge Observatory called a special meeting; and, with that
composure which distinguishes learned bodies in general, peacefully
discussed the scientific bearings of the question. At the Gun Club there
was an explosion. All the gunners were assembled. Vice-President the
Hon. Wilcome was in the act of reading the premature despatch, in which
J. T. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just been
seen in the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak, and also that it was held
by lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under satellite to the
lunar world.
We know the truth on that point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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