The First Men in the Moon

rney to

tored, and that what we had we must economise for reading. For a time, wheth

ut of the void. "How ar

our dir

and as the moon is near her third quarter we are

sky outside was as black as the darkness within the sphere, but the

f luminous veil of our air has been withdrawn. The stars we see on earth are the mere scattered survivor

at airless, star-dusted sky! Of all things, I th

pen and instantly closed, and then a third, and for a moment I had t

it things about me to season my eyes to light again

provisions were also creeping slowly down the glass, and presently came to rest so as to block out a portion of the view. It seemed to me, of course, that I looked "down" when I looked at the moon. On earth "down" means earthward, the way things fall, and "up" th

to one. On earth light falls from above, or comes slanting down sideways, but

down upon the moon through hundreds of thousands of miles of vacant space;

ably larger than it does from earth. The minutest details of its surface were acutely clear. And since we did not see it through air, its outline was bright and sharp, there was no glow or halo about it, and the star-dust that covered the sky came right

rly. Those companies we were going t

el

t see '

; "but you'll ge

to turn right side u

d half believe ther

Lloyd's News m

entleman. Then somebody eccentric wanted to sell a Cutaway bicycle, "quite new and cost 15 pounds," for five pounds; and a lady in distress wished to dispose of some fish knives and forks, "a wedding present," at a great sacrifice. No doubt som

le from the e

hy

y. It occurred to me that it would be rather odd if-my

l telescope on earth even now t

tared in silen

s that infinitely more than one e

ink yourself a sort of ultra-arctic voyager expl

of snow, or frozen carbonic acid, or frozen air, and everywhere landslip seams and cracks and gulfs. Nothing happens. Men hav

on

lips, a doubtful crack, and one slight p

w they'd trac

But as for

all a thing will the biggest t

of creatures having no earthly parallel. That is the most probable thing, if we are to find life there at all. Think of the difference in conditions! Life must fit itself to a day as long as fourteen earthly days, a cloudless sun-blaze of fourteen days, and then a night of e

," he said, "taking its air solid as an earth-

said, "why didn'

uestion. "No," he conclu

ee when we

there's my minerals, anyhow," I sa

ake my head swim, and advised me to extend my hands against the glass to break my fall. I did as he directed, and thrust my feet against the bales of food cases and air cylinders to prevent thei

he land below us was in twilight and vague, but westward the vast gray stretches of the Atlantic shone like molten silver under the receding day. I think I recognised the cloud-dimmed coast-lin

the moon was "down" and under my feet, and that the earth was somewhere away on the level of

time. Even then I was satisfied with very little. Cavor examined the apparatus for absorbing carbonic acid and water, and pronounced it to be in satisfactory order, our consumption of oxygen having been extraordinarily slight. And our talk being exhausted for the time, and

s of appetite,[*] but for the most part in a sort of quiescence that was neither waking nor slumber, we fell th

e abstained. At first we forced our appetites, but afterwards we fasted completely. Altogether we did not consume one-hundredth part of the compresse