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From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne (Extract)

"There is no one among you, my brave colleagues, who has not seen the Moon, or,at least, heard speak of it. Don't be surprised if I am about to discourse to you regarding the Queen of the Night. It is perhaps reserved for us to become the"Columbuses'"of this unknown world. Only accept my plans, and second me with all your power, and I will lead you to its conquest, and its name will be added to those of the thirty-six states which compose this Great Union."

"Three cheers for the Moon!"roared the Gun Club, with one voice.

"The Moon, gentlemen, has been carefully studied,"continued Barbicane;"its mass,density, and weight; its constitution, motions,distance, as well as its place in the solar system, have all been exactly determined.Photography has given us proof of the incomparable beauty of our satellite; all is known regarding the Moon, which

mathematical science, astronomy, geology,and optics can learn about it. But up to the present moment no direct communication has been established with it."

The audience made a violent movement of interest and surprise.

"Permit me,"he continued,"to recount to you briefly how certain ardent spirits, starting on imaginary journeys, have penetrated the secrets of our satellite. In the seventeenth century, a certain David Fabricius said he had seen, with his own eyes, the inhabitants of the moon.In 1649 a Frenchman, one Jean Baudoin, published"A Journey Performed from the Earth to the Moon' by Domingo Gonzalez,a Spanish adventurer. About 1835, a small treatise, related how Sir John Herschel, with a telescope, had perceived caverns frequented by hippopotami, green mountains, sheep with horns of ivory, a white species of deer and inhabitants with membranous wings, like bats.

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