As soon as the first effects were over, the injured, the deaf, and lastly, the crowd in general, woke up with frenzied cries. "Hurrah for Ardan! Hurrah for Barbicane! Hurrah for Nicholl!" rose to the skies. Thousands of persons, noses in air, armed with telescopes and race-glasses, were questioning space, forgetting all contusions and emotions in the one idea of watching for the projectile. They looked in vain! It was no longer to be seen, and they were obliged to wait for telegrams from Long's Peak. The Director of the Cambridge Observatory was at his post on the Rocky Mountains; and to him, as a skilful and persevering astronomer, all observations had been confided. Illustration: EFFECT OF THE EXPLOSION. Illustration: THE DIRECTOR AT HIS POST. But an unforeseen phenomenon came in to subject the public impatience to a severe trial. The weather, hitherto so fine, suddenly changed; the sky became heavy with clouds. It could not have been otherwise after the terrible derangement of the atmospheric strata, and the dispersion of the enormous quantity of vapour arising from the combustion of 200,000 lbs. of pyroxyle! On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds—a thick and impenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappily extended as far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality! But since man had chosen so to disturb the atmosphere, he was bound to accept the consequences of his experiment. Supposing, now, that the experiment had succeeded, the travellers having started on the 1st of December, at 10h. 46m. 40s. p.m., were due on the 4th at 0h. p.m. at their destination. So that up to that time it would have been very difficult after all to have observed, under such conditions, a body so small as the shell. Therefore they waited with what patience they might. From the 4th to the 6th of December inclusive, the weather remaining much the same in America, the great European instruments of Herschel, Rosse, and Foucault, were constantly directed towards the moon, for the weather was then magnificent; but the comparative weakness of their glasses prevented any trustworthy observations being made. On the 7th the sky seemed to lighten. They were in hopes now, but their hope was of but short duration, and at night again thick clouds hid the starry vault from all eyes. Matters were now becoming serious, when on the 9th, the sun reappeared for an instant, as if for the purpose of teasing the Americans. It was received with hisses; and wounded, no doubt, by such a reception, showed itself very sparing of its rays. On the 10th, no change! J. T. Maston went nearly mad, and great fears were entertained regarding the brain of this worthy individual, which had hitherto been so well preserved within his gutta-percha cranium.