But, if that was impossible, nothing was easier now than to know the worst that could happen. The firing-point had been revealed, and it was a simple matter of calculation—a complicated calculation evidently, but not beyond the capacities of algebraists in particular and mathematicians in general. At first the Government kept the despatch secret, their object being to be able to indicate when they published it what would be the results of the displacement of the axis with regard to the alteration in the level of the waters. The inhabitants of the world would then know the fate that was in store for them, according to the segment of the spheroid on which they resided. On the 14th of September the telegram was sent to the Longitudes Office at Washington, with instructions to work out the final consequences, ballistic and geographical. The next day but one the information was ready. It was cabled at once to all the Governments of the new and old worlds, and having been printed in thousands of newspapers, it was cried in all the great cities by all the newsboys of the globe, as— “What is going to happen?” Which was the question being asked in every language just then. And this is the reply as given by the Longitudes Office. “IMPORTANT NOTICE. “The experiment to be attempted by Barbicane & Co. is as follows:— “To produce a recoil on the 22nd of September at midnight, local time, by means of a monster cannon throwing a projectile of one hundred and eighty thousand tons. “If this discharge is effected just below the Equator, near the thirty-eighth meridian, at the base of the Kilimanjaro chain, and if it is directed towards the south, the mechanical effect on the terrestrial spheroid will be as follows:— “At once, owing to the shock being combined with the diurnal movement, a new axis will be formed, the old axis being 23° 28′, and the new one being perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. “In the north the extremity of the new axis will be situated between Greenland and Grinnell Land, on that part of Baffin Sea cut by the Arctic Circle. In the south it will be on the Antarctic Circle to the east of Adelaide Land. “As an example of the new meridians, we may mention that passing through Dublin in Ireland, Paris in France, Palermo in Sicily, Obeid in Darfur, Kilimanjaro, Kerguelen Island, the new Antarctic Pole, the Society Islands in the Pacific, Vancouver Island, and Melville Peninsula. “The new Equator will pass through the Kilimanjaro country, the Indian Ocean, Goa, a little below Calcutta, Mangala in Siam, Hong Kong, the Marshall and Walker Islands in the Pacific, Rio Janeiro, Saint Helena, and by St. Paul de Loanda across Africa to Kilimanjaro. “The new Equator having been formed by the new axis, it is possible to calculate the results on the ocean levels.