But was it ever to be known why the enterprise failed? Did the failure prove that the project was impossible, that the forces of which man disposes will never be sufficient to bring about a change in the Earth’s diurnal movement, that never would the Polar regions be displaced in latitude to such an extent that their icy mantle will be melted by the solar rays? That this was the case appeared undoubted a few days after the return of Barbicane and Nicholl to the United States. A letter appeared in the Parisian _Temps_ of the 17th of October, which did mankind a service in confirming it in its feeling of security. The letter was the following:— “The abortive attempt to furnish the Earth with a new axis is now known. Nevertheless, the calculations of J. T. Maston were correctly founded, and would have produced the desired results if by some inexplicable distraction they had not been nullified by an error at the outset. “In fact, the celebrated secretary of the Gun Club took for his basis the circumference of the terrestrial spheroid at forty thousand metres instead of forty million metres—and that nullified the solution. “How came he to make such an error? What could have caused it? How could so remarkable a mathematician have made such a mistake? Conjecture is vain. “There is no doubt that the problem of the change of the terrestrial axis was correctly stated, and it should have been correctly worked out. But the initial error of three noughts produced an error of twelve noughts in the final result. “It is not a cannon a million times as large as a four hundred pounder, but a million million million such cannons, hurling a million million million projectiles of one hundred and eighty thousand tons, that would displace the Pole 23° 28′, supposing that meli-melonite has the expansive power attributed to it by Captain Nicholl. “In short, the discharge of the projectile at Kilimanjaro has been to displace the Pole three microns—that is, thousandths of a millimetre, and the maximum effect on the level of the sea must have been just nine-thousandths of a micron. “The projectile has become a small planet, and henceforth belongs to our system, in which it is retained by the solar attraction. “ALCIDE PIERDEUX.” So it was some distraction of J. T. Maston’s, an error of three noughts at the beginning of his calculations, that had brought this humiliating disaster on Barbicane & Co. The members of the Gun Club were furious, but among the general public a reaction arose in favour of the poor fellow. After all, it was this mistake which had caused all the evil—or rather all the good, for it saved the world from ruin. And so compliments came in from all parts, and letters arrived in millions congratulating J. T. Maston on having forgotten his three noughts!