Capturing Light, The Place of Faith in Education

Volume XV, Issue IV

The Place of Faith in Education
A Unique Perspective on the Issue from CIVITAS


Iris. Photo by Bob Kirchman.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.” – Psalm 111:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” – Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” – Proverbs 9:10

Education is only adequate and worthy when it is itself religious… There is no possibility of neutrality… To be neutral concerning G-d is the same thing as to ignore Him… If children are brought up to have an understanding of life in which, in fact, there is no reference to G-d, you cannot correct the effect of that by speaking about G-d for a certain period of the day. Therefore our ideal for the children of our country is the ideal for truly religious education." -- William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942.

Here is a very interesting report from CIVITAS [1.], on The Place of Faith in Schools [click to read] by Professor David Conway. It adds a new dimension to the debate now raging in America between those who would impose a strictly secular criteria and those who consider Faith an essential component of learning.

[A] nation which draws into itself continuously, and not merely in its first beginnings, the inspiration of a religious faith and a religious purpose will increase its own vitality… Our own nation… has been inspired by a not ignoble notion of national duty to aid the oppressed – the persecuted Vaudois, the suffering slave, the oppressed nationality – and it has been most... characteristically national when it has most felt such inspiration…

We offend against the essence of the [English] nation if we emphasise its secularity, or regard it as merely an earthly unit for earthly purposes. Its tradition began its life at the breast of Christianity; and its development in time, through the centuries… has not been utterly way from its nursing mother… [I]n England our national tradition has been opposed to the idea of a merely secular society for secular purposes standing over against a separate religious society for religious purposes. Our practice has been in the main that of the single society, which if national is also religious, making public profession of Christianity in its solemn acts, and recognising religious instruction as part of its scheme of education." -- Ernest Barker, Cambridge Philosopher

Professor Conway  Concludes: "All would stand to benefit from such committed forms of religious education in the country’s state-funded schools, not simply because it would be likely to improve the educational performance, behaviour and well-being of the nation’s schoolchildren. They would also all benefit because, I believe, only by continuing to provide it can this country be assured of remaining the independent and united liberal polity that it has for so long been and from whose continuing to be such all its diverse inhabitants would derive benefit, even those who do not share that faith or any other."

Capturing Light
My Talk at Natural Bridge



Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.” – PSALM 48:12-14

I never tire of telling the story of Mohomony. That is what the Monacans called Virginia’s Natural Bridge. In their legend they faced a much larger force of Powhatans and prevailed because the bridge narrowed the attacking forces. The Monacans, fighting for wives and children behind them, overcame a much more powerful attacking force because they met them atop the bridge where an equal number of warriors faced them at any given time; constrained by the width of the bridge.

No doubt, the Monacans who fought in that battle would show young people the Natural Bridge and recount the wonder of Mohomony for them. This would be to them a story of Divine Deliverance just as the youth of Jerusalem would be encouraged to take note of their own history of Divine Deliverance. PSALM 48 ends with just such a charge!

I am giving a talk on the inspiration for my paintings at Natural Bridge. Part of it is a workshop for children where I give them black paper and white charcoal. I encourage them to look up at the bridge and remember the story. Then I guide them in drawing the light. It is fun to watch them draw light instead of just dark lines on white paper.

One little girl from South Carolina was particularly inspired by the project. She was seven years old and her mother proudly showed me some phone pictures of her work. She wanted to give me her capture of the bridge but I insisted that she give it to her mom and I would take a picture of it for myself! There are a few souls who’s IMAGO DEI extends to very early expression in art. I told her mom that she had a great treasure. Cherish her well!


Here are my examples of 'Capturing Light' along with a painting by Savhanna Herndon for inspiration.




Demonstration of 'Capturing Light.' Photos by Bob Kirchman.

Mohomony
Natural Bridge as Seen from Below


Looking straight up at Mohomony from Cedar Creek. 
Photo by Bob Kirchman

Homage to Willy Ferguson
Mural to Honor Staunton Metal Sculptor


Beginnings of the mural. Photo by Bob Kirchman.

Our students from the Home School Coop have begun a mural that will honor the memory of Willy Ferguson, the man who created the giant watering can at the entrance to the city. Designed by Madeline Maas, the mural, which is in sight of the watering can, will feature bright sunflowers in the manner of Vincent van Gogh. Students will be working on the painting this week.


Students begin painting. Photo by Bob Kirchman.


Willy Ferguson created Staunton's Watering Can Sculpture. 
Photo by Bob Kirchman.

Round the Moon
By Jules Verne

CHAPTER VIII,
AT SEVENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN LEAGUES

What had happened? Whence the cause of this singular intoxication, the consequences of which might have been very disastrous? A simple blunder of Michel's, which, fortunately, Nicholl was able to correct in time.

After a perfect swoon, which lasted some minutes, the captain, recovering first, soon collected his scattered senses. Although he had breakfasted only two hours before, he felt a gnawing hunger, as if he had not eaten anything for several days. Everything about him, stomach and brain, were overexcited to the highest degree.

He got up and demanded from Michel a supplementary repast. Michel, utterly done up, did not answer.

Nicholl then tried to prepare some tea destined to help the absorption of a dozen sandwiches. He first tried to get some fire, and struck a match sharply. What was his surprise to see the sulphur shine with so extraordinary a brilliancy as to be almost unbearable to the eye. From the gas-burner which he lit rose a flame equal to a jet of electric light.

A revelation dawned on Nicholl's mind. That intensity of light, the physiological troubles which had arisen in him, the overexcitement of all his moral and quarrelsome faculties-- he understood all.

The oxygen!" he exclaimed.

And leaning over the air apparatus, he saw that the tap was allowing the colorless gas to escape freely, life-giving, but in its pure state producing the gravest disorders in the system. Michel had blunderingly opened the tap of the apparatus to the full.

Nicholl hastened to stop the escape of oxygen with which the atmosphere was saturated, which would have been the death of the travelers, not by suffocation, but by combustion. An hour later, the air less charged with it restored the lungs to their normal condition. By degrees the three friends recovered from their intoxication; but they were obliged to sleep themselves sober over their oxygen as a drunkard does over his wine.

When Michel learned his share of the responsibility of this incident, he was not much disconcerted. This unexpected drunkenness broke the monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said while under its influence, but also quickly forgotten.

And then," added the merry Frenchman, "I am not sorry to have tasted a little of this heady gas. Do you know, my friends, that a curious establishment might be founded with rooms of oxygen, where people whose system is weakened could for a few hours live a more active life. Fancy parties where the room was saturated with this heroic fluid, theaters where it should be kept at high pressure; what passion in the souls of the actors and spectators! what fire, what enthusiasm! And if, instead of an assembly only a whole people could be saturated, what activity in its functions, what a supplement to life it would derive. From an exhausted nation they might make a great and strong one, and I know more than one state in old Europe which ought to put itself under the regime of oxygen for the sake of its health!"

Michel spoke with so much animation that one might have fancied that the tap was still too open. But a few words from Barbicane soon shattered his enthusiasm.

That is all very well, friend Michel," said he, "but will you inform us where these chickens came from which have mixed themselves up in our concert?"

Those chickens?"

Yes."

Indeed, half a dozen chickens and a fine cock were walking about, flapping their wings and chattering.

Ah, the awkward things!" exclaimed Michel. "The oxygen has made them revolt."

But what do you want to do with these chickens?" asked Barbicane.

To acclimatize them in the moon, by Jove!"

Then why did you hide them?"

A joke, my worthy president, a simple joke, which has proved a miserable failure. I wanted to set them free on the lunar continent, without saying anything. Oh, what would have been your amazement on seeing these earthly-winged animals pecking in your lunar fields!"

You rascal, you unmitigated rascal," replied Barbicane, "you do not want oxygen to mount to the head. You are always what we were under the influence of the gas; you are always foolish!"

Ah, who says that we were not wise then?" replied Michel Ardan.

After this philosophical reflection, the three friends set about restoring the order of the projectile. Chickens and cock were reinstated in their coop. But while proceeding with this operation, Barbicane and his two companions had a most desired perception of a new phenomenon. From the moment of leaving the earth, their own weight, that of the projectile, and the objects it enclosed, had been subject to an increasing diminution.

If they could not prove this loss of the projectile, a moment would arrive when it would be sensibly felt upon themselves and the utensils and instruments they used.

It is needless to say that a scale would not show this loss; for the weight destined to weight the object would have lost exactly as much as the object itself; but a spring steelyard for example, the tension of which was independent of the attraction, would have given a just estimate of this loss.

We know that the attraction, otherwise called the weight, is in proportion to the densities of the bodies, and inversely as the squares of the distances. Hence this effect: If the earth had been alone in space, if the other celestial bodies had been suddenly annihilated, the projectile, according to Newton's laws, would weigh less as it got farther from the earth, but without ever losing its weight entirely, for the terrestrial attraction would always have made itself felt, at whatever distance.

But, in reality, a time must come when the projectile would no longer be subject to the law of weight, after allowing for the other celestial bodies whose effect could not be set down as zero. Indeed, the projectile's course was being traced between the earth and the moon. As it distanced the earth, the terrestrial attraction diminished: but the lunar attraction rose in proportion. There must come a point where these two attractions would neutralize each other: the projectile would possess weight no longer. If the moon's and the earth's densities had been equal, this point would have been at an equal distance between the two orbs. But taking the different densities into consideration, it was easy to reckon that this point would be situated at 47/60ths of the whole journey, i.e., at 78,514 leagues from the earth. At this point, a body having no principle of speed or displacement in itself, would remain immovable forever, being attracted equally by both orbs, and not being drawn more toward one than toward the other.

Now if the projectile's impulsive force had been correctly calculated, it would attain this point without speed, having lost all trace of weight, as well as all the objects within it. What would happen then? Three hypotheses presented themselves.

1. Either it would retain a certain amount of motion, and pass the point of equal attraction, and fall upon the moon by virtue of the excess of the lunar attraction over the terrestrial.

2. Or, its speed failing, and unable to reach the point of equal attraction, it would fall upon the moon by virtue of the excess of the lunar attraction over the terrestrial. 3. Or, lastly, animated with sufficient speed to enable it to reach the neutral point, but not sufficient to pass it, it would remain forever suspended in that spot like the pretended tomb of Mahomet, between the zenith and the nadir.

Such was their situation; and Barbicane clearly explained the consequences to his traveling companions, which greatly interested them. But how should they know when the projectile had reached this neutral point situated at that distance, especially when neither themselves, nor the objects enclosed in the projectile, would be any longer subject to the laws of weight?

Up to this time, the travelers, while admitting that this action was constantly decreasing, had not yet become sensible to its total absence.

But that day, about eleven o'clock in the morning, Nicholl having accidentally let a glass slip from his hand, the glass, instead of falling, remained suspended in the air.

Ah!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "that is rather an amusing piece of natural philosophy."

And immediately divers other objects, firearms and bottles, abandoned to themselves, held themselves up as by enchantment. Diana too, placed in space by Michel, reproduced, but without any trick, the wonderful suspension practiced by Caston and Robert Houdin. Indeed the dog did not seem to know that she was floating in air.

The three adventurous companions were surprised and stupefied, despite their scientific reasonings.

They felt themselves being carried into the domain of wonders! they felt that weight was really wanting to their bodies. If they stretched out their arms, they did not attempt to fall. Their heads shook on their shoulders. Their feet no longer clung to the floor of the projectile. They were like drunken men having no stability in themselves.

Fancy has depicted men without reflection, others without shadow. But here reality, by the neutralizations of attractive forces, produced men in whom nothing had any weight, and who weighed nothing themselves.

Suddenly Michel, taking a spring, left the floor and remained suspended in the air, like Murillo's monk of the Cusine des Anges.

The two friends joined him instantly, and all three formed a miraculous "Ascension" in the center of the projectile.

Is it to be believed? is it probable? is it possible?" exclaimed Michel; "and yet it is so. Ah! if Raphael had seen us thus, what an `Assumption' he would have thrown upon canvas!"

The `Assumption' cannot last," replied Barbicane. "If the projectile passes the neutral point, the lunar attraction will draw us to the moon." "Then our feet will be upon the roof," replied Michel.

No," said Barbicane, "because the projectile's center of gravity is very low; it will only turn by degrees."

Then all our portables will be upset from top to bottom, that is a fact."

Calm yourself, Michel," replied Nicholl; "no upset is to be feared; not a thing will move, for the projectile's evolution will be imperceptible."

Just so," continued Barbicane; "and when it has passed the point of equal attraction, its base, being the heavier, will draw it perpendicularly to the moon; but, in order that this phenomenon should take place, we must have passed the neutral line."

Pass the neutral line," cried Michel; "then let us do as the sailors do when they cross the equator."

A slight side movement brought Michel back toward the padded side; thence he took a bottle and glasses, placed them "in space" before his companions, and, drinking merrily, they saluted the line with a triple hurrah. The influence of these attractions scarcely lasted an hour; the travelers felt themselves insensibly drawn toward the floor, and Barbicane fancied that the conical end of the projectile was varying a little from its normal direction toward the moon. By an inverse motion the base was approaching first; the lunar attraction was prevailing over the terrestrial; the fall toward the moon was beginning, almost imperceptibly as yet, but by degrees the attractive force would become stronger, the fall would be more decided, the projectile, drawn by its base, would turn its cone to the earth, and fall with ever-increasing speed on to the surface of the Selenite continent; their destination would then be attained. Now nothing could prevent the success of their enterprise, and Nicholl and Michel Ardan shared Barbicane's joy.

Then they chatted of all the phenomena which had astonished them one after the other, particularly the neutralization of the laws of weight. Michel Ardan, always enthusiastic, drew conclusions which were purely fanciful.

Ah, my worthy friends," he exclaimed, "what progress we should make if on earth we could throw off some of that weight, some of that chain which binds us to her; it would be the prisoner set at liberty; no more fatigue of either arms or legs. Or, if it is true that in order to fly on the earth's surface, to keep oneself suspended in the air merely by the play of the muscles, there requires a strength a hundred and fifty times greater than that which we possess, a simple act of volition, a caprice, would bear us into space, if attraction did not exist."

Just so," said Nicholl, smiling; "if we could succeed in suppressing weight as they suppress pain by anaesthesia, that would change the face of modern society!"

Yes," cried Michel, full of his subject, "destroy weight, and no more burdens!"

Well said," replied Barbicane; "but if nothing had any weight, nothing would keep in its place, not even your hat on your head, worthy Michel; nor your house, whose stones only adhere by weight; nor a boat, whose stability on the waves is only caused by weight; not even the ocean, whose waves would no longer be equalized by terrestrial attraction; and lastly, not even the atmosphere, whose atoms, being no longer held in their places, would disperse in space!"

That is tiresome," retorted Michel; "nothing like these matter-of-fact people for bringing one back to the bare reality."

But console yourself, Michel," continued Barbicane, "for if no orb exists from whence all laws of weight are banished, you are at least going to visit one where it is much less than on the earth."

The moon?"

Yes, the moon, on whose surface objects weigh six times less than on the earth, a phenomenon easy to prove."

And we shall feel it?" asked Michel.

Evidently, as two hundred pounds will only weigh thirty pounds on the surface of the moon."

And our muscular strength will not diminish?"

Not at all; instead of jumping one yard high, you will rise eighteen feet high."

But we shall be regular Herculeses in the moon!" exclaimed Michel.

Yes," replied Nicholl; "for if the height of the Selenites is in proportion to the density of their globe, they will be scarcely a foot high."

Lilliputians!" ejaculated Michel; "I shall play the part of Gulliver. We are going to realize the fable of the giants. This is the advantage of leaving one's own planet and over-running the solar world."

One moment, Michel," answered Barbicane; "if you wish to play the part of Gulliver, only visit the inferior planets, such as Mercury, Venus, or Mars, whose density is a little less than that of the earth; but do not venture into the great planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune; for there the order will be changed, and you will become Lilliputian."

And in the sun?"

In the sun, if its density is thirteen hundred and twenty-four thousand times greater, and the attraction is twenty-seven times greater than on the surface of our globe, keeping everything in proportion, the inhabitants ought to be at least two hundred feet high."

By Jove!" exclaimed Michel; "I should be nothing more than a pigmy, a shrimp!"

Gulliver with the giants," said Nicholl.

Just so," replied Barbicane.

And it would not be quite useless to carry some pieces of artillery to defend oneself."

Good," replied Nicholl; "your projectiles would have no effect on the sun; they would fall back upon the earth after some minutes."

That is a strong remark."

It is certain," replied Barbicane; "the attraction is so great on this enormous orb, that an object weighing 70,000 pounds on the earth would weigh but 1,920 pounds on the surface of the sun. If you were to fall upon it you would weigh-- let me see-- about 5,000 pounds, a weight which you would never be able to raise again."

The devil!" said Michel; "one would want a portable crane. However, we will be satisfied with the moon for the present; there at least we shall cut a great figure. We will see about the sun by and by."

CHAPTER IX, THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DEVIATION

Barbicane had now no fear of the issue of the journey, at least as far as the projectile's impulsive force was concerned; its own speed would carry it beyond the neutral line; it would certainly not return to earth; it would certainly not remain motionless on the line of attraction. One single hypothesis remained to be realized, the arrival of the projectile at its destination by the action of the lunar attraction.

It was in reality a fall of 8,296 leagues on an orb, it is true, where weight could only be reckoned at one sixth of terrestrial weight; a formidable fall, nevertheless, and one against which every precaution must be taken without delay.

These precautions were of two sorts, some to deaden the shock when the projectile should touch the lunar soil, others to delay the fall, and consequently make it less violent.

To deaden the shock, it was a pity that Barbicane was no longer able to employ the means which had so ably weakened the shock at departure, that is to say, by water used as springs and the partition breaks.

The partitions still existed, but water failed, for they could not use their reserve, which was precious, in case during the first days the liquid element should be found wanting on lunar soil.

And indeed this reserve would have been quite insufficient for a spring. The layer of water stored in the projectile at the time of starting upon their journey occupied no less than three feet in depth, and spread over a surface of not less than fifty-four square feet. Besides, the cistern did not contain one-fifth part of it; they must therefore give up this efficient means of deadening the shock of arrival. Happily, Barbicane, not content with employing water, had furnished the movable disc with strong spring plugs, destined to lessen the shock against the base after the breaking of the horizontal partitions. These plugs still existed; they had only to readjust them and replace the movable disc; every piece, easy to handle, as their weight was now scarcely felt, was quickly mounted.

The different pieces were fitted without trouble, it being only a matter of bolts and screws; tools were not wanting, and soon the reinstated disc lay on steel plugs, like a table on its legs. One inconvenience resulted from the replacing of the disc, the lower window was blocked up; thus it was impossible for the travelers to observe the moon from that opening while they were being precipitated perpendicularly upon her; but they were obliged to give it up; even by the side openings they could still see vast lunar regions, as an aeronaut sees the earth from his car.

This replacing of the disc was at least an hour's work. It was past twelve when all preparations were finished. Barbicane took fresh observations on the inclination of the projectile, but to his annoyance it had not turned over sufficiently for its fall; it seemed to take a curve parallel to the lunar disc. The orb of night shone splendidly into space, while opposite, the orb of day blazed with fire.

Their situation began to make them uneasy.

Are we reaching our destination?" said Nicholl.

Let us act as if we were about reaching it," replied Barbicane.

You are sceptical," retorted Michel Ardan. "We shall arrive, and that, too, quicker than we like."

This answer brought Barbicane back to his preparations, and he occupied himself with placing the contrivances intended to break their descent. We may remember the scene of the meeting held at Tampa Town, in Florida, when Captain Nicholl came forward as Barbicane's enemy and Michel Ardan's adversary. To Captain Nicholl's maintaining that the projectile would smash like glass, Michel replied that he would break their fall by means of rockets properly placed.

Thus, powerful fireworks, taking their starting-point from the base and bursting outside, could, by producing a recoil, check to a certain degree the projectile's speed. These rockets were to burn in space, it is true; but oxygen would not fail them, for they could supply themselves with it, like the lunar volcanoes, the burning of which has never yet been stopped by the want of atmosphere round the moon.

Barbicane had accordingly supplied himself with these fireworks, enclosed in little steel guns, which could be screwed on to the base of the projectile. Inside, these guns were flush with the bottom; outside, they protruded about eighteen inches. There were twenty of them. An opening left in the disc allowed them to light the match with which each was provided. All the effect was felt outside. The burning mixture had already been rammed into each gun. They had, then, nothing to do but raise the metallic buffers fixed in the base, and replace them by the guns, which fitted closely in their places.

This new work was finished about three o'clock, and after taking all these precautions there remained but to wait. But the projectile was perceptibly nearing the moon, and evidently succumbed to her influence to a certain degree; though its own velocity also drew it in an oblique direction. From these conflicting influences resulted a line which might become a tangent. But it was certain that the projectile would not fall directly on the moon; for its lower part, by reason of its weight, ought to be turned toward her.

Barbicane's uneasiness increased as he saw his projectile resist the influence of gravitation. The Unknown was opening before him, the Unknown in interplanetary space. The man of science thought he had foreseen the only three hypotheses possible-- the return to the earth, the return to the moon, or stagnation on the neutral line; and here a fourth hypothesis, big with all the terrors of the Infinite, surged up inopportunely. To face it without flinching, one must be a resolute savant like Barbicane, a phlegmatic being like Nicholl, or an audacious adventurer like Michel Ardan.

Conversation was started upon this subject. Other men would have considered the question from a practical point of view; they would have asked themselves whither their projectile carriage was carrying them. Not so with these; they sought for the cause which produced this effect.

So we have become diverted from our route," said Michel; "but why?"

I very much fear," answered Nicholl, "that, in spite of all precautions taken, the Columbiad was not fairly pointed. An error, however small, would be enough to throw us out of the moon's attraction."

Then they must have aimed badly?" asked Michel.

I do not think so," replied Barbicane. "The perpendicularity of the gun was exact, its direction to the zenith of the spot incontestible; and the moon passing to the zenith of the spot, we ought to reach it at the full. There is another reason, but it escapes me."

Are we not arriving too late?" asked Nicholl.

Too late?" said Barbicane.

Yes," continued Nicholl. "The Cambridge Observatory's note says that the transit ought to be accomplished in ninety-seven hours thirteen minutes and twenty seconds; which means to say, that sooner the moon will not be at the point indicated, and later it will have passed it."

True," replied Barbicane. "But we started the 1st of December, at thirteen minutes and twenty-five seconds to eleven at night; and we ought to arrive on the 5th at midnight, at the exact moment when the moon would be full; and we are now at the 5th of December. It is now half-past three in the evening; half-past eight ought to see us at the end of our journey. Why do we not arrive?"

Might it not be an excess of speed?" answered Nicholl; "for we know now that its initial velocity was greater than they supposed."

No! a hundred times, no!" replied Barbicane. "An excess of speed, if the direction of the projectile had been right, would not have prevented us reaching the moon. No, there has been a deviation. We have been turned out of our course."

By whom? by what?" asked Nicholl.

cannot say," replied Barbicane.

Very well, then, Barbicane," said Michel, "do you wish to know my opinion on the subject of finding out this deviation?"

Speak."

I would not give half a dollar to know it. That we have deviated is a fact. Where we are going matters little; we shall soon see. Since we are being borne along in space we shall end by falling into some center of attraction or other."

Michel Ardan's indifference did not content Barbicane. Not that he was uneasy about the future, but he wanted to know at any cost why his projectile had deviated.

But the projectile continued its course sideways to the moon, and with it the mass of things thrown out. Barbicane could even prove, by the elevations which served as landmarks upon the moon, which was only two thousand leagues distant, that its speed was becoming uniform-- fresh proof that there was no fall. Its impulsive force still prevailed over the lunar attraction, but the projectile's course was certainly bringing it nearer to the moon, and they might hope that at a nearer point the weight, predominating, would cause a decided fall.

The three friends, having nothing better to do, continued their observations; but they could not yet determine the topographical position of the satellite; every relief was leveled under the reflection of the solar rays.

They watched thus through the side windows until eight o'clock at night. The moon had grown so large in their eyes that it filled half of the firmament. The sun on one side, and the orb of night on the other, flooded the projectile with light.

At that moment Barbicane thought he could estimate the distance which separated them from their aim at no more than 700 leagues. The speed of the projectile seemed to him to be more than 200 yards, or about 170 leagues a second. Under the centripetal force, the base of the projectile tended toward the moon; but the centrifugal still prevailed; and it was probable that its rectilineal course would be changed to a curve of some sort, the nature of which they could not at present determine.

Barbicane was still seeking the solution of his insoluble problem. Hours passed without any result.

The projectile was evidently nearing the moon, but it was also evident that it would never reach her. As to the nearest distance at which it would pass her, that must be the result of two forces, attraction and repulsion, affecting its motion.

I ask but one thing," said Michel; "that we may pass near enough to penetrate her secrets."

Cursed be the thing that has caused our projectile to deviate from its course," cried Nicholl.

And, as if a light had suddenly broken in upon his mind, Barbicane answered, "Then cursed be the meteor which crossed our path."

What?" said Michel Ardan.

What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicholl.

I mean," said Barbicane in a decided tone, "I mean that our deviation is owing solely to our meeting with this erring body."

But it did not even brush us as it passed," said Michel.

What does that matter? Its mass, compared to that of our projectile, was enormous, and its attraction was enough to influence our course."

So little?" cried Nicholl.

Yes, Nicholl; but however little it might be," replied Barbicane, "in a distance of 84,000 leagues, it wanted no more to make us miss the moon."



CHAPTER X, THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON

Barbicane had evidently hit upon the only plausible reason of this deviation. However slight it might have been, it had sufficed to modify the course of the projectile. It was a fatality. The bold attempt had miscarried by a fortuitous circumstance; and unless by some exceptional event, they could now never reach the moon's disc.

Would they pass near enough to be able to solve certain physical and geological questions until then insoluble? This was the question, and the only one, which occupied the minds of these bold travelers. As to the fate in store for themselves, they did not even dream of it.

But what would become of them amid these infinite solitudes, these who would soon want air? A few more days, and they would fall stifled in this wandering projectile. But some days to these intrepid fellows was a century; and they devoted all their time to observe that moon which they no longer hoped to reach.

The distance which had then separated the projectile from the satellite was estimated at about two hundred leagues. Under these conditions, as regards the visibility of the details of the disc, the travelers were farther from the moon than are the inhabitants of earth with their powerful telescopes.

Indeed, we know that the instrument mounted by Lord Rosse at Parsonstown, which magnifies 6,500 times, brings the moon to within an apparent distance of sixteen leagues. And more than that, with the powerful one set up at Long's Peak, the orb of night, magnified 48,000 times, is brought to within less than two leagues, and objects having a diameter of thirty feet are seen very distinctly. So that, at this distance, the topographical details of the moon, observed without glasses, could not be determined with precision. The eye caught the vast outline of those immense depressions inappropriately called "seas," but they could not recognize their nature. The prominence of the mountains disappeared under the splendid irradiation produced by the reflection of the solar rays. The eye, dazzled as if it was leaning over a bath of molten silver, turned from it involuntarily; but the oblong form of the orb was quite clear. It appeared like a gigantic egg, with the small end turned toward the earth. Indeed the moon, liquid and pliable in the first days of its formation, was originally a perfect sphere; but being soon drawn within the attraction of the earth, it became elongated under the influence of gravitation. In becoming a satellite, she lost her native purity of form; her center of gravity was in advance of the center of her figure; and from this fact some savants draw the conclusion that the air and water had taken refuge on the opposite surface of the moon, which is never seen from the earth. This alteration in the primitive form of the satellite was only perceptible for a few moments.

The distance of the projectile from the moon diminished very rapidly under its speed, though that was much less than its initial velocity-- but eight or nine times greater than that which propels our express trains. The oblique course of the projectile, from its very obliquity, gave Michel Ardan some hopes of striking the lunar disc at some point or other. He could not think that they would never reach it. No! he could not believe it; and this opinion he often repeated. But Barbicane, who was a better judge, always answered him with merciless logic.

No, Michel, no! We can only reach the moon by a fall, and we are not falling. The centripetal force keeps us under the moon's influence, but the centrifugal force draws us irresistibly away from it."

This was said in a tone which quenched Michel Ardan's last hope.

The portion of the moon which the projectile was nearing was the northern hemisphere, that which the selenographic maps place below; for these maps are generally drawn after the outline given by the glasses, and we know that they reverse the objects. Such was the Mappa Selenographica of Boeer and Moedler which Barbicane consulted. This northern hemisphere presented vast plains, dotted with isolated mountains.

At midnight the moon was full. At that precise moment the travelers should have alighted upon it, if the mischievous meteor had not diverted their course. The orb was exactly in the condition determined by the Cambridge Observatory. It was mathematically at its perigee, and at the zenith of the twenty-eighth parallel. An observer placed at the bottom of the enormous Columbiad, pointed perpendicularly to the horizon, would have framed the moon in the mouth of the gun. A straight line drawn through the axis of the piece would have passed through the center of the orb of night. It is needless to say, that during the night of the 5th-6th of December, the travelers took not an instant's rest. Could they close their eyes when so near this new world? No! All their feelings were concentrated in one single thought:-- See! Representatives of the earth, of humanity, past and present, all centered in them! It is through their eyes that the human race look at these lunar regions, and penetrate the secrets of their satellite! A strange emotion filled their hearts as they went from one window to the other. Their observations, reproduced by Barbicane, were rigidly determined. To take them, they had glasses; to correct them, maps.

As regards the optical instruments at their disposal, they had excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this journey. They possessed magnifying powers of 100. They would thus have brought the moon to within a distance (apparent) of less than 2,000 leagues from the earth. But then, at a distance which for three hours in the morning did not exceed sixty-five miles, and in a medium free from all atmospheric disturbances, these instruments could reduce the lunar surface to within less than 1,500 yards!
(to be continued)


Volume XII, Issue XIIIc

PONTIFUS, The Bridge Builder's Tale
Copyright © 2017, The Kirchman Studio, all rights reserved

Table of Contents, Click to Enter:
Prequil: The Reckless Engineer

PONTIFUS, The Bridge Builder's Tale in Three Parts
Book 1: Dinner Stop at the End of the World
Book 2: Zimmerman's Folly
Book 3: Little House at the End of the World

NOVUS VIA, A Story of the More Perfect Way
Book 1: A Guide to the 2059/2060 World's Fair
Book 2: The Long Road Home
Book 3: The Road to Damascus

CORVINUS, A Story of Three Brothers and Their Rise to Power
Book 1: The Brothers CORVINUS
Book 2: Ascent to Power
Book 3: Behold the Man

APOLLONIUS, A Journey to a World Unseen
JOSIAH, A Time for Healing

The Gift Horse, A Short Story
Stones of Remembrance, A Short Story
ZIMMERLOOPTM, Travel in the Year 2059



Droplets
Photos by Bob Kirchman

Walking on Water, Creative Solutionists, Lewis

Volume XV, Issue III

The Bethlehem Steel Story
Builder of America's Buildings, Ships and Bridges



Afternoon in Times Square
Photo by Savhanna Herndon


Savhanna Herndon recently visited New York and we will feature some of her photos in upcoming issues.

Tree at Blackrock Springs
Photos by Bob Kirchman


Photo by Bob Kirchman.


Photo by Bob Kirchman.

Looking for Artist
Who Can Walk on Water

The most creative job in the world involves fashion, decorating, recreation, education, transportation, psychology, romance, cuisine, literature, art, economics, government, pediatrics, geriatrics, entertainment, maintenance, purchasing, law, religion, energy and management. Anyone who can handle all of these has to be somebody special. She is. She’s a homemaker.” – Richard Kerr

If the work comes to the artist and says, 'Here I am, serve me,' then the job of the artist, great or small, is to serve. The amount of the artist's talent is not what it is about. Jean Rhys said to an interviewer in the Paris Review, 'Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake'.” ― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Somewhere in my past, I owned a book of Nineteenth Century industrial illustrations. They were beautiful. Of note were the obvious details of pure ornamentation that the designers sought to put into their work. There was a sense that there was wonder to be unfolded in the inventions so delineated. Design seems to have moved sharply away from the hand-rendered transcendence of that period to a more machine-based process. There is a beautiful quality to much of that as well, but there is less direct touch to paper and process. I miss that. Still, there is a place for Divine Design. Richard Kerr’s homemaker embodies the practice of creativity. Many building designers are quite adept at assembling elements and organizing spaces on their screens, but where once they would have had creative interaction with the renderer, the press of a few buttons and the arc of the mouse take them to the visualization of their work.

This week I started to re-read Madeline L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. [1.] Not far into this fine little book one encounters the topic of obedience. L’engle puts it this way: A work of art, be it a painting, a book, or any other work, comes to the artist and says: “Here I am, Enflesh me. Give Birth to me.” The artist is faced with a choice. She may respond as Mary: “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” or she may refuse. The decision is not necessarily a conscious one. And so, as I continue to provide old-fashioned visualization for a few clients, I see the work there dwindling. Yet I am not yet ready to give up serving. There is still work to be done. For the past months, I have taught drawing and painting to a young high school student who is home schooled. There is Divine purpose there. Now the invitation has been extended to teach a unit in the home school coop. It seems the Divine mission is thus: to inspire a new generation to infuse their life in this world with the stuff that Kerr talks about. Divine mission, a Sacred trust, an invitation to join the Master in His finest work. I find myself enthused.

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.” -- Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art


Looking for artist... Photo by Kristina Elaine Greer.


...who can walk on water! Photo by Kristina Elaine Greer.



All children are artists, and it is an indictment of our culture that so many of them lose their creativity, their unfettered imaginations, as they grow older. But they start off without self-consciousness as they paint their purple flowers, their anatomically impossible people, their thunderous, sulphurous skies. They don’t worry that they may not be as good as Di Chirico or Bracque; they know intuitively that it is folly to make comparisons, and they go ahead and say what they want to say. What looks like a hat to a grownup may, to the child artist, be an elephant inside a boa constrictor.

So what happens? Why do we lose our wonderful, rackety creativity? What corrupts us?

Corrupt: another unpopular word; another important one. It’s importance first struck me when I was reading Thomas Traherne, one of my favorite seventeenth century poets and mystics. “Certainly Adam and Eve in Paradise had not more sweete and curious apprehensions of the world than when I was a child,” he wrote. Everything was new and delightful for him. The rosy glow of sunrise had in it the flaming glory of creation. The stars at night were a living, heavenly dance. He listened to the grass growing, smelled the west wind, tasted the rain, touched the grains of sand on the shore. All hi senses, his mind, his heart, were alive and in touch with being. “So that,” Trahane adds sadly, “without much ado I as corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world, which now I unlearn, and become as a little child again, that I may enter into the Kingdom of God.”

A lot of my adult life has been spent in trying to overcome this corruption, in unlearning the dirty devices of this world, which would dull our imaginations, cut away our creativity. So it is only with the conscious-unselfconsciousness of a child that I can think about theories of asthetics, of art, particularly as these touch upon my questions about life and love and God.” -- Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
-- Antoin de St Exupery

Higher Calling
Thought from George MacDonald


Pink Ladyslipper at White Rock Falls. Photo by Bob Kirchman

If, instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give."
- George Macdonald

A Gift of Beauty
Warnie's Box



This absence of beauty, now that I come to think of it, is characteristic of our childhood. No picture on the walls of my father's house ever attracted — and indeed none deserved — our attention. We never saw a beautiful building nor imagined that a building could be beautiful. My earliest aesthetic experiences, if indeed they were aesthetic, were not of that kind; they were already incurably romantic, not formal. Once in those very early days my brother brought into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers so as to make it a toy garden or a toy forest.

That was the first beauty I ever knew.

What the real garden had failed to do, the toy garden did. It made me aware of nature — not, indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colours but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant. I do not think the impression was very important at the moment, but it soon became important in memory. As long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my brother's toy garden."
-- C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy [ 2.]

Fixing the Escalator
[click to read]

by Nicholas N. Eberstadt


Metro Escalator, Washington, DC. Photo by Bob Kirchman

The abstraction of “inequality” doesn’t matter a lot to ordinary Americans. The reality of economic insecurity does. [3.] The Great American Escalator is broken—and it badly needs to be fixed. With the election of 2016, Americans within the bubble finally learned that the 21st century has gotten off to a very bad start in America. Welcome to the reality. We have a lot of work to do together to turn this around. (read more)

Looking for Creative Solutionists
By Bob Kirchman

Awareness of a problem is only the beginning. What if Divine Inspiration is available to lead us to new and innovative answers to human problems? It has happened in centuries past and I firmly believe it is within our grasp now.

Poll any group of young people today and you will find a degree of pessimism about the future. As the economy faltered, ‘experts’ essentially told them: “Welcome to the new normal.” But history tells us that economies are not a zero-sum game… one where someone must lose for another to win. New invention has lifted entire societies in the past and I believe it can do so again. Consider the case of Nineteenth Century England. We all know that William Wilberforce [4.] performed a great and noble work when he won the abolition of slavery, but did you know that that devastated the economy of Bristol, England’s chief slave port. Fortunes were lost. Men committed suicide. Children were cast out onto the street. Bristol’s children faced a dismal ‘new normal’ indeed.

But a young minister from Prussia came to Bristol as a missionary. George Müller [5.] saw Bristol’s street urchins as jewels to be polished. He built five large houses at Ashley Downs to care for orphans, trusting the Divine for provision. He cared for 10,024 orphan children in the course of his life, instructing the boys in trades and the ladies for work as teachers, nurses and housekeepers. He was excoriated by the ‘experts’ for training these young people ‘above their station.’ He ignored the experts. He established 117 schools which offered Christian education to over 120,000 children. But what future would there be for them?

Pastor Tim Keller calls economic development a Deaconate Ministry. To be sure the church does this work when it sends treadle sewing machines to Zambia, so that widowed ladies may become tailors. But it is also needed in the developed world. Sometimes the instrument of Divine blessing may not even know that they are. Consider the case of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Britain’s Nineteenth Century Bridge Builder. [6.] He came to Bristol to build a suspension bridge and ended up building the Great Western Railroad, which revitalized Bristol’s economy! Brunel also designed great ships to connect Britain with the Americas, making cotton cheap and plentiful. The offshoot of this and modern textile manufacturing was that poor as well as rich could afford quality garments.

It was suggested in the Nineteenth Century that the United States Patent Office could be shut down because “everything that is going to be invented has already been invented!” Well, the truth was that much of the visionary technology depicted in Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaire would not be perfected until the Twentieth Century. Only time will tell what wonders the Divine might inspire in the decades to come, but if history is any indicator, there is much to be hopeful for!


Metro Escalator, Washington, DC. Photo by Bob Kirchman

Round the Moon
By Jules Verne

CHAPTER VI, QUESTION AND ANSWER

On the 4th of December, when the travelers awoke after fifty-four hours' journey, the chronometer marked five o'clock of the terrestrial morning. In time it was just over five hours and forty minutes, half of that assigned to their sojourn in the projectile; but they had already accomplished nearly seven-tenths of the way. This peculiarity was due to their regularly decreasing speed.

Now when they observed the earth through the lower window, it looked like nothing more than a dark spot, drowned in the solar rays. No more crescent, no more cloudy light! The next day, at midnight, the earth would be new, at the very moment when the moon would be full. Above, the orb of night was nearing the line followed by the projectile, so as to meet it at the given hour. All around the black vault was studded with brilliant points, which seemed to move slowly; but, at the great distance they were from them, their relative size did not seem to change. The sun and stars appeared exactly as they do to us upon earth. As to the moon, she was considerably larger; but the travelers' glasses, not very powerful, did not allow them as yet to make any useful observations upon her surface, or reconnoiter her topographically or geologically.

Thus the time passed in never-ending conversations all about the moon. Each one brought forward his own contingent of particular facts; Barbicane and Nicholl always serious, Michel Ardan always enthusiastic.

The projectile, its situation, its direction, incidents which might happen, the precautions necessitated by their fall on to the moon, were inexhaustible matters of conjecture.

As they were breakfasting, a question of Michel's, relating to the projectile, provoked rather a curious answer from Barbicane, which is worth repeating. Michel, supposing it to be roughly stopped, while still under its formidable initial speed, wished to know what the consequences of the stoppage would have been.

But," said Barbicane, "I do not see how it could have been stopped."

But let us suppose so," said Michel.

It is an impossible supposition," said the practical Barbicane; "unless that impulsive force had failed; but even then its speed would diminish by degrees, and it would not have stopped suddenly." "Admit that it had struck a body in space."

What body?" "Why that enormous meteor which we met."

Then," said Nicholl, "the projectile would have been broken into a thousand pieces, and we with it."

More than that," replied Barbicane; "we should have been burned to death."

Burned?" exclaimed Michel, "by Jove! I am sorry it did not happen, `just to see.'"

And you would have seen," replied Barbicane. "It is known now that heat is only a modification of motion. When water is warmed-- that is to say, when heat is added to it--its particles are set in motion."

Well," said Michel, "that is an ingenious theory!"

And a true one, my worthy friend; for it explains every phenomenon of caloric. Heat is but the motion of atoms, a simple oscillation of the particles of a body. When they apply the brake to a train, the train comes to a stop; but what becomes of the motion which it had previously possessed? It is transformed into heat, and the brake becomes hot. Why do they grease the axles of the wheels? To prevent their heating, because this heat would be generated by the motion which is thus lost by transformation."

Yes, I understand," replied Michel, "perfectly. For example, when I have run a long time, when I am swimming, when I am perspiring in large drops, why am I obliged to stop? Simply because my motion is changed into heat." Barbicane could not help smiling at Michel's reply; then, returning to his theory, said:

Thus, in case of a shock, it would have been with our projectile as with a ball which falls in a burning state after having struck the metal plate; it is its motion which is turned into heat. Consequently I affirm that, if our projectile had struck the meteor, its speed thus suddenly checked would have raised a heat great enough to turn it into vapor instantaneously."

Then," asked Nicholl, "what would happen if the earth's motion were to stop suddenly?"

Her temperature would be raised to such a pitch," said Barbicane, "that she would be at once reduced to vapor."

Well," said Michel, "that is a way of ending the earth which will greatly simplify things."

And if the earth fell upon the sun?" asked Nicholl.

According to calculation," replied Barbicane, "the fall would develop a heat equal to that produced by 16,000 globes of coal, each equal in bulk to our terrestrial globe."

Good additional heat for the sun," replied Michel Ardan, "of which the inhabitants of Uranus or Neptune would doubtless not complain; they must be perished with cold on their planets."

Thus, my friends," said Barbicane, "all motion suddenly stopped produces heat. And this theory allows us to infer that the heat of the solar disc is fed by a hail of meteors falling incessantly on its surface. They have even calculated----"

Oh, dear!" murmured Michel, "the figures are coming."

They have even calculated," continued the imperturbable Barbicane, "that the shock of each meteor on the sun ought to produce a heat equal to that of 4,000 masses of coal of an equal bulk."

And what is the solar heat?" asked Michel.

It is equal to that produced by the combustion of a stratum of coal surrounding the sun to a depth of forty-seven miles." "And that heat----"

Would be able to boil two billions nine hundred millions of cubic myriameters [2] of water."
[2] The myriameter is equal to rather more than 10,936 cubic yards English.

And it does not roast us!" exclaimed Michel.

No," replied Barbicane, "because the terrestrial atmosphere absorbs four-tenths of the solar heat; besides, the quantity of heat intercepted by the earth is but a billionth part of the entire radiation."

I see that all is for the best," said Michel, "and that this atmosphere is a useful invention; for it not only allows us to breathe, but it prevents us from roasting."

Yes!" said Nicholl, "unfortunately, it will not be the same in the moon."

Bah!" said Michel, always hopeful. "If there are inhabitants, they must breathe. If there are no longer any, they must have left enough oxygen for three people, if only at the bottom of ravines, where its own weight will cause it to accumulate, and we will not climb the mountains; that is all." And Michel, rising, went to look at the lunar disc, which shone with intolerable brilliancy.

By Jove!" said he, "it must be hot up there!"

Without considering," replied Nicholl, "that the day lasts 360 hours!"

And to compensate that," said Barbicane, "the nights have the same length; and as heat is restored by radiation, their temperature can only be that of the planetary space."

A pretty country, that!" exclaimed Michel. "Never mind! I wish I was there! Ah! my dear comrades, it will be rather curious to have the earth for our moon, to see it rise on the horizon, to recognize the shape of its continents, and to say to oneself, `There is America, there is Europe;' then to follow it when it is about to lose itself in the sun's rays! By the bye, Barbicane, have the Selenites eclipses?"

Yes, eclipses of the sun," replied Barbicane, "when the centers of the three orbs are on a line, the earth being in the middle. But they are only partial, during which the earth, cast like a screen upon the solar disc, allows the greater portion to be seen."

And why," asked Nicholl, "is there no total eclipse? Does not the cone of the shadow cast by the earth extend beyond the moon?"

Yes, if we do not take into consideration the refraction produced by the terrestrial atmosphere. No, if we take that refraction into consideration. Thus letbe the horizontal parallel, and p the apparent semidiameter----"

Oh!" said Michel. "Do speak plainly, you man of algebra!"

Very well," replied Barbicane; "in popular language the mean distance from the moon to the earth being sixty terrestrial radii, the length of the cone of the shadow, on account of refraction, is reduced to less than forty-two radii. The result is that when there are eclipses, the moon finds itself beyond the cone of pure shadow, and that the sun sends her its rays, not only from its edges, but also from its center."

Then," said Michel, in a merry tone, "why are there eclipses, when there ought not to be any?"

Simply because the solar rays are weakened by this refraction, and the atmosphere through which they pass extinguished the greater part of them!"

That reason satisfies me," replied Michel. "Besides we shall see when we get there. Now, tell me, Barbicane, do you believe that the moon is an old comet?"

There's an idea!"

Yes," replied Michel, with an amiable swagger, "I have a few ideas of that sort."

But that idea does not spring from Michel," answered Nicholl.

Well, then, I am a plagiarist."

No doubt about it. According to the ancients, the Arcadians pretend that their ancestors inhabited the earth before the moon became her satellite. Starting from this fact, some scientific men have seen in the moon a comet whose orbit will one day bring it so near to the earth that it will be held there by its attraction."

Is there any truth in this hypothesis?" asked Michel. "None whatever," said Barbicane, "and the proof is, that the moon has preserved no trace of the gaseous envelope which always accompanies comets."

But," continued Nicholl, "Before becoming the earth's satellite, could not the moon, when in her perihelion, pass so near the sun as by evaporation to get rid of all those gaseous substances?"

It is possible, friend Nicholl, but not probable."

Why not?"

Because-- Faith I do not know."

Ah!" exclaimed Michel, "what hundred of volumes we might make of all that we do not know!"

Ah! indeed."

What time is it?" asked Barbicane.

Three o'clock," answered Nicholl.

How time goes," said Michel, "in the conversation of scientific men such as we are! Certainly, I feel I know too much! I feel that I am becoming a well!"

Saying which, Michel hoisted himself to the roof of the projectile, "to observe the moon better," he pretended. During this time his companions were watching through the lower glass. Nothing new to note!

When Michel Ardan came down, he went to the side scuttle; and suddenly they heard an exclamation of surprise!

What is it?" asked Barbicane.

The president approached the window, and saw a sort of flattened sack floating some yards from the projectile. This object seemed as motionless as the projectile, and was consequently animated with the same ascending movement. "What is that machine?" continued Michel Ardan. "Is it one of the bodies which our projectile keeps within its attraction, and which will accompany it to the moon?"

What astonishes me," said Nicholl, "is that the specific weight of the body, which is certainly less than that of the projectile, allows it to keep so perfectly on a level with it."

Nicholl," replied Barbicane, after a moment's reflection, "I do not know what the object it, but I do know why it maintains our level."

And why?"

Because we are floating in space, my dear captain, and in space bodies fall or move (which is the same thing) with equal speed whatever be their weight or form; it is the air, which by its resistance creates these differences in weight. When you create a vacuum in a tube, the objects you send through it, grains of dust or grains of lead, fall with the same rapidity. Here in space is the same cause and the same effect."

Just so," said Nicholl, "and everything we throw out of the projectile will accompany it until it reaches the moon."

Ah! fools that we are!" exclaimed Michel.

Why that expletive?" asked Barbicane.

Because we might have filled the projectile with useful objects, books, instruments, tools, etc. We could have thrown them all out, and all would have followed in our train. But happy thought! Why cannot we walk outside like the meteor? Why cannot we launch into space through the scuttle? What enjoyment it would be to feel oneself thus suspended in ether, more favored than the birds who must use their wings to keep themselves up!"

Granted," said Barbicane, "but how to breathe?"

Hang the air, to fail so inopportunely!"

But if it did not fail, Michel, your density being less than that of the projectile, you would soon be left behind."

Then we must remain in our car?"

We must!"

Ah!" exclaimed Michel, in a load voice.

What is the matter," asked Nicholl.

I know, I guess, what this pretended meteor is! It is no asteroid which is accompanying us! It is not a piece of a planet."

What is it then?" asked Barbicane.

It is our unfortunate dog! It is Diana's husband!"

Indeed, this deformed, unrecognizable object, reduced to nothing, was the body of Satellite, flattened like a bagpipe without wind, and ever mounting, mounting!

CHAPTER VII, A MOMENT OF INTOXICATION

Thus a phenomenon, curious but explicable, was happening under these strange conditions.

Every object thrown from the projectile would follow the same course and never stop until it did. There was a subject for conversation which the whole evening could not exhaust.

Besides, the excitement of the three travelers increased as they drew near the end of their journey. They expected unforseen incidents, and new phenomena; and nothing would have astonished them in the frame of mind they then were in. Their overexcited imagination went faster than the projectile, whose speed was evidently diminishing, though insensibly to themselves. But the moon grew larger to their eyes, and they fancied if they stretched out their hands they could seize it.

The next day, the 5th of November, at five in the morning, all three were on foot. That day was to be the last of their journey, if all calculations were true.

That very night, at twelve o'clock, in eighteen hours, exactly at the full moon, they would reach its brilliant disc. The next midnight would see that journey ended, the most extraordinary of ancient or modern times. Thus from the first of the morning, through the scuttles silvered by its rays, they saluted the orb of night with a confident and joyous hurrah.

The moon was advancing majestically along the starry firmament. A few more degrees, and she would reach the exact point where her meeting with the projectile was to take place.

According to his own observations, Barbicane reckoned that they would land on her northern hemisphere, where stretch immense plains, and where mountains are rare. A favorable circumstance if, as they thought, the lunar atmosphere was stored only in its depths.

Besides," observed Michel Ardan, "a plain is easier to disembark upon than a mountain. A Selenite, deposited in Europe on the summit of Mont Blanc, or in Asia on the top of the Himalayas, would not be quite in the right place."

And," added Captain Nicholl, "on a flat ground, the projectile will remain motionless when it has once touched; whereas on a declivity it would roll like an avalanche, and not being squirrels we should not come out safe and sound. So it is all for the best."

Indeed, the success of the audacious attempt no longer appeared doubtful. But Barbicane was preoccupied with one thought; but not wishing to make his companions uneasy, he kept silence on this subject.

The direction the projectile was taking toward the moon's northern hemisphere, showed that her course had been slightly altered. The discharge, mathematically calculated, would carry the projectile to the very center of the lunar disc. If it did not land there, there must have been some deviation. What had caused it? Barbicane could neither imagine nor determine the importance of the deviation, for there were no points to go by.

He hoped, however, that it would have no other result than that of bringing them nearer the upper border of the moon, a region more suitable for landing.

Without imparting his uneasiness to his companions, Barbicane contented himself with constantly observing the moon, in order to see whether the course of the projectile would not be altered; for the situation would have been terrible if it failed in its aim, and being carried beyond the disc should be launched into interplanetary space. At that moment, the moon, instead of appearing flat like a disc, showed its convexity. If the sun's rays had struck it obliquely, the shadow thrown would have brought out the high mountains, which would have been clearly detached. The eye might have gazed into the crater's gaping abysses, and followed the capricious fissures which wound through the immense plains. But all relief was as yet leveled in intense brilliancy. They could scarcely distinguish those large spots which give the moon the appearance of a human face.

Face, indeed!" said Michel Ardan; "but I am sorry for the amiable sister of Apollo. A very pitted face!"

But the travelers, now so near the end, were incessantly observing this new world. They imagined themselves walking through its unknown countries, climbing its highest peaks, descending into its lowest depths. Here and there they fancied they saw vast seas, scarcely kept together under so rarefied an atmosphere, and water-courses emptying the mountain tributaries. Leaning over the abyss, they hoped to catch some sounds from that orb forever mute in the solitude of space. That last day left them.

They took down the most trifling details. A vague uneasiness took possession of them as they neared the end. This uneasiness would have been doubled had they felt how their speed had decreased. It would have seemed to them quite insufficient to carry them to the end. It was because the projectile then "weighed" almost nothing. Its weight was ever decreasing, and would be entirely annihilated on that line where the lunar and terrestrial attractions would neutralize each other.

But in spite of his preoccupation, Michel Ardan did not forget to prepare the morning repast with his accustomed punctuality. They ate with a good appetite. Nothing was so excellent as the soup liquefied by the heat of the gas; nothing better than the preserved meat. Some glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, causing Michel Ardan to remark that the lunar vines, warmed by that ardent sun, ought to distill even more generous wines; that is, if they existed. In any case, the far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his collection some precious cuttings of the Medoc and Cote d'Or, upon which he founded his hopes.

Reiset and Regnaut's apparatus worked with great regularity. Not an atom of carbonic acid resisted the potash; and as to the oxygen, Captain Nicholl said "it was of the first quality." The little watery vapor enclosed in the projectile mixing with the air tempered the dryness; and many apartments in London, Paris, or New York, and many theaters, were certainly not in such a healthy condition.

But that it might act with regularity, the apparatus must be kept in perfect order; so each morning Michel visited the escape regulators, tried the taps, and regulated the heat of the gas by the pyrometer. Everything had gone well up to that time, and the travelers, imitating the worthy Joseph T. Maston, began to acquire a degree of embonpoint which would have rendered them unrecognizable if their imprisonment had been prolonged to some months. In a word, they behaved like chickens in a coop; they were getting fat.

In looking through the scuttle Barbicane saw the specter of the dog, and other divers objects which had been thrown from the projectile, obstinately following them. Diana howled lugubriously on seeing the remains of Satellite, which seemed as motionless as if they reposed on solid earth.

Do you know, my friends," said Michel Ardan, "that if one of us had succumbed to the shock consequent on departure, we should have had a great deal of trouble to bury him? What am I saying? to etherize him, as here ether takes the place of earth. You see the accusing body would have followed us into space like a remorse."

That would have been sad," said Nicholl.

Ah!" continued Michel, "what I regret is not being able to take a walk outside. What voluptuousness to float amid this radiant ether, to bathe oneself in it, to wrap oneself in the sun's pure rays. If Barbicane had only thought of furnishing us with a diving apparatus and an air-pump, I could have ventured out and assumed fanciful attitudes of feigned monsters on the top of the projectile."

Well, old Michel," replied Barbicane, "you would not have made a feigned monster long, for in spite of your diver's dress, swollen by the expansion of air within you, you would have burst like a shell, or rather like a balloon which has risen too high. So do not regret it, and do not forget this-- as long as we float in space, all sentimental walks beyond the projectile are forbidden."

Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced to a certain extent. He admitted that the thing was difficult but not impossible, a word which he never uttered.

The conversation passed from this subject to another, not failing him for an instant. It seemed to the three friends as though, under present conditions, ideas shot up in their brains as leaves shoot at the first warmth of spring. They felt bewildered. In the middle of the questions and answers which crossed each other, Nicholl put one question which did not find an immediate solution.

Ah, indeed!" said he; "it is all very well to go to the moon, but how to get back again?"

His two interlocutors looked surprised. One would have thought that this possibility now occurred to them for the first time.

What do you mean by that, Nicholl?" asked Barbicane gravely.

To ask for means to leave a country," added Michel, "When we have not yet arrived there, seems to me rather inopportune."

I do not say that, wishing to draw back," replied Nicholl; "but I repeat my question, and I ask, `How shall we return?'"

I know nothing about it," answered Barbicane.

And I," said Michel, "if I had known how to return, I would never have started."

There's an answer!" cried Nicholl.

I quite approve of Michel's words," said Barbicane; "and add, that the question has no real interest. Later, when we think it is advisable to return, we will take counsel together. If the Columbiad is not there, the projectile will be."

That is a step certainly. A ball without a gun!"

The gun," replied Barbicane, "can be manufactured. The powder can be made. Neither metals, saltpeter, nor coal can fail in the depths of the moon, and we need only go 8,000 leagues in order to fall upon the terrestrial globe by virtue of the mere laws of weight."

Enough," said Michel with animation. "Let it be no longer a question of returning: we have already entertained it too long. As to communicating with our former earthly colleagues, that will not be difficult."

And how?"

By means of meteors launched by lunar volcanoes."

Well thought of, Michel," said Barbicane in a convinced tone of voice. "Laplace has calculated that a force five times greater than that of our gun would suffice to send a meteor from the moon to the earth, and there is not one volcano which has not a greater power of propulsion than that."

Hurrah!" exclaimed Michel; "these meteors are handy postmen, and cost nothing. And how we shall be able to laugh at the post-office administration! But now I think of it----"

What do you think of?"

A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile, and we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?"

The deuce!" answered Nicholl. "Do you consider the weight of a thread 250,000 miles long nothing?"

As nothing. They could have trebled the Columbiad's charge; they could have quadrupled or quintupled it!" exclaimed Michel, with whom the verb took a higher intonation each time.

There is but one little objection to make to your proposition," replied Barbicane, "which is that, during the rotary motion of the globe, our thread would have wound itself round it like a chain on a capstan, and that it would inevitably have brought us to the ground."

By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!" said Michel, "I have nothing but impracticable ideas to-day; ideas worthy of J. T. Maston. But I have a notion that, if we do not return to earth, J. T. Maston will be able to come to us."

Yes, he'll come," replied Barbicane; "he is a worthy and a courageous comrade. Besides, what is easier? Is not the Columbiad still buried in the soil of Florida? Is cotton and nitric acid wanted wherewith to manufacture the pyroxyle? Will not the moon pass the zenith of Florida? In eighteen years' time will she not occupy exactly the same place as to-day?"

Yes," continued Michel, "yes, Maston will come, and with him our friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, all the members of the Gun Club, and they will be well received. And by and by they will run trains of projectiles between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J. T. Maston!"

It is probable that, if the Hon. J. T. Maston did not hear the hurrahs uttered in his honor, his ears at least tingled. What was he doing then? Doubtless, posted in the Rocky Mountains, at the station of Long's Peak, he was trying to find the invisible projectile gravitating in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions, we must allow that they were not far behind him; and that, under the influence of a strange excitement, they were devoting to him their best thoughts.

But whence this excitement, which was evidently growing upon the tenants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be doubted. This strange irritation of the brain, must it be attributed to the peculiar circumstances under which they found themselves, to their proximity to the orb of night, from which only a few hours separated them, to some secret influence of the moon acting upon their nervous system? Their faces were as rosy as if they had been exposed to the roaring flames of an oven; their voices resounded in loud accents; their words escaped like a champagne cork driven out by carbonic acid; their gestures became annoying, they wanted so much room to perform them; and, strange to say, they none of them noticed this great tension of the mind.

Now," said Nicholl, in a short tone, "now that I do not know whether we shall ever return from the moon, I want to know what we are going to do there?"

What we are going to do there?" replied Barbicane, stamping with his foot as if he was in a fencing saloon; "I do not know."

You do not know!" exclaimed Michel, with a bellow which provoked a sonorous echo in the projectile.

No, I have not even thought about it," retorted Barbicane, in the same loud tone.

Well, I know," replied Michel.

Speak, then," cried Nicholl, who could no longer contain the growling of his voice.

I shall speak if it suits me," exclaimed Michel, seizing his companions' arms with violence.

It must suit you," said Barbicane, with an eye on fire and a threatening hand. "It was you who drew us into this frightful journey, and we want to know what for."

Yes," said the captain, "now that I do not know where I am going, I want to know why I am going."

Why?" exclaimed Michel, jumping a yard high, "why? To take possession of the moon in the name of the United States; to add a fortieth State to the Union; to colonize the lunar regions; to cultivate them, to people them, to transport thither all the prodigies of art, of science, and industry; to civilize the Selenites, unless they are more civilized than we are; and to constitute them a republic, if they are not already one!"

And if there are no Selenites?" retorted Nicholl, who, under the influence of this unaccountable intoxication, was very contradictory.

Who said that there were no Selenites?" exclaimed Michel in a threatening tone.

I do," howled Nicholl.

Captain," said Michel, "do not repreat that insolence, or I will knock your teeth down your throat!"

The two adversaries were going to fall upon each other, and the incoherent discussion threatened to merge into a fight, when Barbicane intervened with one bound.

Stop, miserable men," said he, separating his two companions; "if there are no Selenites, we will do without them."

Yes," exclaimed Michel, who was not particular; "yes, we will do without them. We have only to make Selenites. Down with the Selenites!"

The empire of the moon belongs to us," said Nicholl.

Let us three constitute the republic."

I will be the congress," cried Michel.

And I the senate," retorted Nicholl.

And Barbicane, the president," howled Michel.

Not a president elected by the nation," replied Barbicane.

Very well, a president elected by the congress," cried Michel; "and as I am the congress, you are unanimously elected!"

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for President Barbicane," exclaimed Nicholl.

Hip! hip! hip!" vociferated Michel Ardan.

Then the president and the senate struck up in a tremendous voice the popular song "Yankee Doodle," while from the congress resounded the masculine tones of the "Marseillaise."

Then they struck up a frantic dance, with maniacal gestures, idiotic stampings, and somersaults like those of the boneless clowns in the circus. Diana, joining in the dance, and howling in her turn, jumped to the top of the projectile. An unaccountable flapping of wings was then heard amid most fantastic cock-crows, while five or six hens fluttered like bats against the walls.

Then the three traveling companions, acted upon by some unaccountable influence above that of intoxication, inflamed by the air which had set their respiratory apparatus on fire, fell motionless to the bottom of the projectile.
(to be continued)



De la Terre à la Lune
Imagination, Science and Discovery

When the astronauts of Apollo One perished in a pre-launch test of their spacecraft, an investigation ensued. One engineer as depicted in the television reenactment of the Apollo program was asked what was to blame for the fire. “Lack of Imagination.” was his response. He explained that engineers had imagined every way the astronauts could be killed in space and designed equipment and procedures to meet every expected danger. It was the danger they never imagined that caught them.

Imagination sent us to the moon long before technology. Jules Verne imagined wartime technology of his day repurposed to send men into space. In 1902 filmmaker Georges Méliès took the new medium of film and added imagination. He created a film journey to the moon using Verne’s giant cannon. John Fitzgerald Kennedy saw the dark weapons of the Twentieth Century and challenged the whole of humanity to literally ‘aim for the moon.’ Here is a modern telling of that wonderful time when science and imagination met to create man’s first voyage away from planet Earth

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 [click to view]

“City of Lights”


Sunset, Perth, Australia. Photo by S. Kirchman.

On February 20th, 1962, American Astronaut John Glenn orbited the earth. It was the first time an American had done so and the City of Perth, Australia had a warm welcome awaiting him. It was nighttime on that side of the globe and the people of Perth turned on all their lights for Glenn, causing him to proclaim that Perth was the ‘City of Lights!’ Glenn would return to space in 1998 at the age of 77 flying on the space shuttle. Again the lights of Perth were lit for him!


The Lights of Perth. NASA Photo.


Perth, Australia from the International Space Station. Scott Kelly.

The Eternal City, a Real Place?
[click to read]

Is there really life after death? Or is this life all there is? It's a question that we ignore, we toss aside, and eventually ponder. It's a question that draws out fear and emotional outrage. It's a question that affects how we live and what we live for. Could there really be an eternal city, coming out of heaven, where humanity will live in the next life? I believe that there is just such a place. Our universe is a very interesting place. Have you ever breezed through photos taken by the Hubble telescope? Or looked at photos taken by molecular biologists of cells in the human body? Have you looked up at the stars and the moon and wondered at the harmonious complexity of our world? I know I have done those things.

Have you watched the hummingbird meander effortlessly through the air buzzing at breakneck speeds from flower to flower injecting it's beak into the nectar simultaneously feeding itself and cross-pollinating plants? Have you contemplated the breadth of time from eternity to eternity? Have you considered the factors necessary for the survival of a species? Indeed, these things are spell-binding. They cry out for an intelligence beyond our frame of physical reference with the ability to care for our souls past death. The eternal city is indeed a real place. And there are requirements we must meet to enter that place. These requirements are most certainly moral in nature. After all we as humans think and live in moral terms. We look for justice, mercy, love, forgiveness, and judgment. We know intuitively that abstract ideas, like good and evil, are rooted in fixed reality. We know that good and evil are real. All of these things led to my realization that God is in fact real. And that there is an eternal city beyond our existence on Earth. The very last book of the book tells us about it. It's a book titled "Revelation." Revelation means, "the revealing." It is truly, a fascinating read. (read more)


Window, Epworth United Methodist Church, Selma, Virginia.
Photo by Bob Kirchman.

Conservative Case for Environment
Roger Scruton



Why Beauty Matters
Roger Scruton