Chapter 24 Chapter 23 Conclusion

We remember that these three travelers won the favor of the whole world when they set out.If this scientific experiment had excited the New World as much as the Old when it first began, what kind of hospitality would they receive upon their return?Did not the millions of spectators who flocked to the Florida peninsula rush to meet these three sublime travelers?Will these multitudes of foreigners who have come to American shores from all corners of the globe leave the territory of the United States without seeing Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan?Of course not!The incomparably high enthusiasm of the public must be worthy of the greatness of this scientific experiment!These three travelers left the earth, traveled strangely in the sky, and now they have returned. Naturally, they will be welcomed by the prophet Elias when he returns to the earth in the future.To see them first, and then to hear their voices, is the wish of all.This wish is that of nearly all the inhabitants of the United States, and it is soon to be fulfilled.

Barbicane, Michel Ardan, Nicholl, and the representatives of the Gun Club returned to Baltimore without delay, and were greeted with indescribable enthusiasm.Chairman Barbicane's Journal of Travels is being prepared for publication. The New York Herald Tribune paid an unprecedented price for the manuscript, in fact, during the period of publication of "Travel to the Moon," the newspaper had a circulation of five million copies.Three days after the three travelers returned to Earth, the smallest details of their expedition became known.Now it is enough to look at the heroes of this extraordinary cause.

The voyages of Barbicane and his two friends round the moon have made it possible for us to examine the various theories concerning the satellites of the earth.These three scientists once observed the moon with their own eyes under special conditions.Regarding the formation of this celestial body, its origin and its habitability, we now know which theories should be discarded and which theories should be affirmed.Now even the last secrets of its past, present, and even future are revealed.Who can object to the fact that these three conscientious observers have determined that the height of the queer Tycho Mons, one of the most peculiar mountain formations on the Moon, is less than forty kilometers?Who has anything to say about these three scientists whose eyes have sunk into the abyss of Plato's crater?Who could argue against the scientific experiments of these three daring adventurers, which brought them, unexpectedly, to the unseen side of the moon hitherto unseen by human eyes? ?Now only they have the right to define the lunar science that studies the structure of the lunar world, just as Cuvier defined the fossil skeleton. They have the right to say: the moon is so and so, and it is a habitable world. Humans have been inhabited long before the Earth!It can also be said: the moon is so-and-so, saying that it is an uninhabitable world, and no one lives there now!

The Cannon Club intended to celebrate the return of its most illustrious member and his two companions with a banquet, but a banquet worthy of the victors, worthy of the American people, and capable of direct participation by all the citizens of the United States.All railway lines across the country are connected at both ends by active railways.Then, in all the railway stations, the same banners and the same decorations were hoisted, and the same type of banquet was held.During the time calculated in turn, according to the electric clock with accurate sand distribution, the residents were invited to sit at the banquet...

For four days, from January 5th to 9th, trains stopped running on all the railroads of the United States, as every Sunday, and all the railroad lines were idle. Only one high-speed locomotive, pulling one honorable car, has the right to run on the railroads of the United States of America during these four days.There was a driver and a mechanic on board the locomotive, and, by special consideration, Maston, the Honorable Secretary of the Gun Club, was also on board. This was the exclusive compartment for Chairman Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, and Michel Ardan. Hearing the mechanic's whistle, the limousine left Baltimore Station to the cheers of "Hurrah!" "Hooray!" and all the monosyllabic interjections in American English.It was advancing at eighty leagues an hour.But what was this speed compared with the speed with which the three travelers left the mouth of the Columbia Cannon?

In this way they went from city to city, and wherever they passed, they found the inhabitants already seated, and all who attended the banquet saluted them with the same shout of joy, and applauded them without sparing.Thus they traversed the eastern part of the United States from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine to New Brunswick; then from New York, through Ohio, Michigan to Wisconsin, across the north and Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana went south, turned back and turned southeast, from Alabama to Florida: then went north again to Georgia to North and South Carolina; then, they went from Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia to Indiana , visited central Beizhou: made a final stop at Washington Station and headed back to Baltimore.During these four days they could believe that all the people of the United States of America were seated at the one and only gigantic feast while saluting them with a cry of "Hurrah!"

People at all times regard them as gods who came to the world, as in mythology. In fact, they are well-deserved of this kind of respect. Now, will this scientific experiment, unprecedented in the history of tourism, actually work?Can we establish a direct connection with the moon?Can we build a space agency to the worlds of the solar system?Can we go from one planet to another, from Jupiter to Mercury, and then from one star to another, from Polaris to Sirius?Will there be a vehicle in the future that can take us to visit the many suns that gather in the firmament? We cannot answer these questions right now.But no one, having recognized the daring ingenuity of the Anglo-Saxon race, should be surprised at the efforts of the Americans to make use of the scientific experiments of Chairman Barbicane.

Soon after the return of the three travelers, the public applauded the announcement of the establishment of a limited company, the National Interstellar Transportation Company, with a capital of one hundred million dollars, a thousand dollars per share, and a total of one hundred thousand dollars. share.Chairman: Barbican; Vice-Chairman: Captain Nicholl; General Affairs: Maston: General Manager Michel Ardan. As the American has a temper which foresees everything, even bankruptcy, the honorable Harry Trooper was preappointed as Superintendent of Debt, and Francis Dayton as Administrator.