Chapter 21 Chapter 20 Surveying of the Susquehanna

"Hi! Captain, how is the survey going?" "I think it will be over soon, sir," replied Captain Bronsfield. "But who would have guessed that so near the land, and only a hundred leagues from the coast of America, the sea should be so deep?" "Honestly, Bronsfield, this is a deep trench," said Captain Bloomsbury. "This place has a valley washed out by the Humboldt Current, which drags down the coast of America as far as the Strait of Magellan." "The water here is so deep that it's not suitable for a submarine cable," the captain continued. "It's better to place the cable on a flat submarine plateau like the American cable between Valencia and Newfoundland."

"I agree, Brownsveld, and if you agree, please tell me, Captain, how many feet has the hammer been released?" "Twenty-one thousand five hundred feet out, sir," said Bronsfield, "the shells towing the rover haven't hit the bottom of the sea yet, because the rover always has to come up." "The Brook device is a delicate instrument," said Captain Bloomsbury, "and the data it measures are always very accurate.' "It touched the bottom of the sea!" At this time, a front helmsman who supervised the operation suddenly called out. The captain and captain stepped onto the forecastle.

"How deep is the water?" asked the captain. "Twenty-one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two feet," replied the captain, noting the figure in the workbook. "Very well, Bronsfield," said the captain, "I'll write this result on my map. Now, you pull the detectors aboard. This work will take several hours. The engineer will go to work now. Stoves, we shall be ready to sail as soon as your work is over. It is ten o'clock in the evening, captain, and with your consent, I shall go to bed." "Go to bed, sir, go to bed!" said Captain Brownsfield kindly.

The captain of the Susquehanna, the most upright man in the world, and the most humble servant of his officers, returned to his cabin, drank a cup of brandy and hot sugar water, and repeatedly expressed his great satisfaction to his cook, Then he praised his servant's way of making the bed, and fell asleep peacefully. It was ten o'clock at night.The eleventh day of December will end on this beautiful night. The Susquehanna, a five-hundred-horsepower frigate of the United States Navy, is currently surveying the Pacific Ocean, about a hundred leagues off the coast of the United States, near a narrow peninsula south of New Mexico.

The wind died down.The atmosphere was calm.The flag hung motionless and lifeless from the topmast. For well done Captain Jonathan Bloomsbury - one of the most enthusiastic members of the Cannon Club, cousin of Colonel Bloomsbury, who married his cousin, a Holsch The weather could not have been more ideal for such delicate work of measurement as the Beeden girl, the daughter of a respectable Kentucky wholesaler.As for the great storm which had cleared the Rocky Mountain clouds so that the movement of the various projectiles could be observed, his escort did not even feel it at all.Here everything was as it should be, and he did not forget to thank God with the zeal of a Presbyterian.

The series of surveys carried out by the Susquehanna was aimed at finding suitable sites for laying an undersea cable from the Hawaiian Islands to the coast of the United States. This is a huge plan proposed by a powerful company.The manager of this company, the shrewd Cyrus Field, even advocated the laying of a vast telegraph network linking all the islands of Oceania, a great enterprise worthy of the genius of the Americans.” It was the initial detection work of this program that was entrusted to the Susquehanna.On the night of December 11, the escort was at exactly 27° 7' north latitude and 41:36' west longitude Washington.

At this time, the moon, which has entered the last quarter period, has just risen from the horizon. After Bloomsbury had gone, Captain Bronsfield and several officers assembled on the quarterdeck.As soon as the moon appeared, their thoughts turned to the celestial body at which all the men in the hemisphere were gazing.The best naval telescopes could not detect projectiles orbiting the Moon.Yet all telescopes were still aimed at the radiant disk, and millions of eyes were fixed on it. "They've been gone for ten days," said Captain Bronsfield. "What are they doing now?"

"They have reached their destination, my captain," cried the young lieutenant, "and they are wandering about like all travelers arriving at a new place!" "Since you tell me so, I am sure they have reached the moon, my young friend," replied Captain Bronsfield, smiling. "Besides, we shouldn't doubt it," continued another officer. "The projectile should reach the moon at midnight on the fifth. We are now on the eleventh of December, which means six days. Six times twenty-four hours, and without darkness, they have plenty of time to comfortably Settle down. I seem to see that our three righteous countrymen have camped by a stream in the depths of the valley of the moon, next to the projectile that was half buried in the volcanic ash when it landed. Captain Nicholl began Leveling, Chairman Barbicane writing out his travel notes, Michel Ardan's Havana scenting the silence of the Moon..."

"Yes, it should be so, and it must be so," exclaimed the young lieutenant, suddenly excited by his superior's poetic description. "I hope so, too," replied the less excitable Captain Bronsfield. "Unfortunately, there is no direct communication between us and the lunar world." "I'm sorry, my captain," said the second lieutenant. "Can Chairman Barbicane know how to write?" There was a burst of laughter at this answer. "I'm not talking about writing letters," said the young man hastily. "The post office there is quite different from ours."

"Perhaps the telegraph office?" asked another officer sarcastically. "Not to mention the telegraph office," replied the second lieutenant, who was not troubled. "But it was easy for them to establish a diagrammatic connection with the earth.' "How to do it?" "Langfeng's telescope can be used. You know this telescope can reduce the distance between the moon and the Rocky Mountains to two leagues, so that we can see objects nine feet in diameter on the surface of the moon. Well! As long as we three astute Friends make a few gigantic letters! May they write a few words a mile long with letters a hundred Torvalds high, and they'll be able to get their message to us!"

Everyone applauded warmly for this young second lieutenant, he is quite an imaginative person.Captain John Brownsfield also thought the idea was "feasible". He then added that direct communication with the Earth could be established by using a beam of parabolic mirror; We can see it, even on Neptune. He concluded by saying that the luminous spots observed on nearby planets may be the signal to the earth. But he went on to say that using this Method, we can get the news of the moon world, but we cannot send the news of the earth world, unless the moon people also have instruments for long-distance observation. "Of course," replied one of the officers, "but how the three travelers are doing, what they're doing, and what they've seen are all of our special interest. Besides, if the experiment is successful , I do not doubt this, we shall have a second experiment in the future. The Colombian guns are still left under the ground in Florida, as long as there are shells and powder, so that every time the moon passes through the zenith, we can give The moon is sending a group of tourists up." "It is evident," said Captain Bronsfield, "that Maston is going to visit his three friends in a few days' time." "If he wants me," cried the ensign, "I'm ready to go with him." "Ah! There's no shortage of amateurs everywhere," replied Bronsfield. "If they go on like this, half the population of the earth will be colonized on the moon in a very short time!" The officers on the Susquehanna went on talking like this until one o'clock in the morning.We cannot describe here one by one the amazing theories and dazzling theories published by those brave people at that time.Ever since Barbicane began this scientific experiment, nothing seemed impossible to the Americans.They were already planning to send not a committee of scientists, but an army of infantry, artillery, and cavalry to conquer the lunar world. At one o'clock in the morning, the probe has not yet been pulled to the surface of the water.There are still 10,000 feet of rope left in the water, and it will take hours to finish.According to the captain's order, the furnace has been started, and the pressure of the boiler has begun to rise.Susquehanna is ready to sail anytime. At this moment—it was seventeen past one in the morning—Captain Bronsfield was leaving the quarterdeck and returning to his cabin when his attention was suddenly attracted by a distant and unexpected whistling sound. He and his companions thought it was the sound of an air leak at first, but as soon as they raised their heads, they were able to confirm that the sound came from the upper atmosphere. Before they had time to ask each other, the howling sound became louder and creepier, and then, suddenly, under their confused eyes, a huge meteor appeared, due to its high speed, being rubbed by the atmosphere, It is burning brightly. In their eyes, this pyrotechnic object was getting bigger and bigger. Like a thunder, it hit the fore-mast with a bang, and the fore-mast snapped off. Then it sank into the waves and disappeared with a deafening sound. A few feet more and the Susquehanna would have sunk, man and equipment. At this moment, Captain Bloomsbury appeared half naked. He rushed onto the bow deck, and all the officers rushed to him: "Permit me to ask, gentlemen, what happened?" he asked. The lieutenant's words echoed, perhaps, everyone's answer, as he shouted: "Captain, they're back!"