Lost on the Moon | Page 7

need to dwell at any length on the
construction of the projectile in which our friends hoped to travel to the
moon. Sufficient to say that it was a sort of enclosed airship, capable of
travelling through space--that is, air or ether--at enormous speed, that
there were contained within it many complicated machines, some for
operating the projectile, some for offence or defence against enemies,
such as electric guns, apparatus for making air or water, and scores of
scientific instruments.
The Annihilator was controlled either from the engine room, or from a
pilot house forward. As for the motive power it was, for the trip to the
moon, to be of that wonderful Martian substance, Cardite, which would
operate the motors.
The projectile moved through space by the throwing off of waves of
energy, similar to wireless vibrations, from large plates of metal, and
these plates were the invention of Professor Roumann.
Perhaps to some of my readers it may seem strange to speak so casually
of a trip to the moon, but it must be remembered that our friends had
already accomplished a much more difficult journey, namely, that to
Mars. So the moon voyage was not to daunt them.
Mars, as I have said, was thirty-five millions of miles away from the
earth when the Annihilator was headed toward it. To reach the moon,
however, but 252,972 miles, at the most, must be traversed--a little
more than a quarter of a million miles. As the distance from the earth to
the moon varies, being between the figures I have named, and 221,614
miles, with the average distance computed as being 238,840 miles, it
can readily be seen that at no time was the voyage to be considered as
comparing in distance with the one to Mars.
But there were other matters to be taken into consideration, and our
friends began to ponder on them in the days during which they made
their preparations.

CHAPTER IV
AN ACCIDENT
Washington White was kept busy getting together the food for the
voyage, and he had about completed his task, while Andy Sudds
announced one morning that his department was ready for inspection,
and that he thought he would go hunting until the projectile was ready
to start.
"Well, if you see anything of that queer man who sent me the note, just
ask him what he meant by it," suggested Mark, for inquiry from the boy
who had brought the message, developed the fact that Dick did not
know the man, nor had he ever seen him before. He was a stranger in
the neighborhood. But, as nothing more resulted from it, the two lads
gave the matter no further thought.
"How soon before we will be ready to start?" asked Jack one day, while
he and his chum, with the two professors, were working over the
projectile, which was soon to be shot through space.
"In about two weeks," replied Mr. Roumann. "I want to make a few
changes in the Cardite plates, which will replace the ones used on the
Etherium motor. Then I want to test them, and, if I find that they work
all right, as I hope, we will seal ourselves up in the Annihilator, and
start for the moon."
"Are you going to try to go around it, and land on the side turned away
from us?" asked Mark, who had been studying astronomy lately.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Jack. "Doesn't the moon turn
around?"
"Not as the earth does," replied his chum; "or, rather, to be more exact,
it rotates exactly as the earth does, on its axis; but, in doing this it
occupies precisely the same time that it takes to make a revolution
about our planet. So that, in the long run, to quote from my astronomy,
it keeps the same side always toward the earth; and today, or, to be

more correct, each night that the moon is visible, we see the same face
and aspect that Galileo did when he first looked at it through his
telescope, and, unless something happens, the same thing will continue
for thousands of years."
"Then we've never seen the other side of the moon?" asked Jack.
"Never; and that's why I wondered if the professor was going to
attempt to reach it. Perhaps there are people there, and air and water,
for it is practically certain that there is neither moisture nor atmosphere
on this side of Luna."
"Wow! Then maybe we'd better not go," said Jack, with a shiver.
"What will we do, if we get thirsty?"
"Oh, I guess we can manage, with all the apparatus we have, to distill
enough water," said Professor Henderson, with a smile. "Then, too, we
will take plenty with us, and, of course, tanks of