Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/326



But to return to our subject. The hour of departure now strikes, the travellers haying taken their seats in their hermetically closed cabin, and the signal to start having been given. Those of the onlookers who stood near saw Black duly at his post, and grasping with firm hand the electrics which were to regulate the speed. The vessel is first to run upwards a short way upon a sloping pier; and having thus acquired speed, is to be launched off into air, and so pursue her further course. And now every eye watches this testing transition from the terra firma of the solid pier to the air and the ether. A simultaneous shout indicates the moment of trial, and the prolonged applause tells its success. In a few more seconds all eyes are already straining to following the small and rapidly diminishing object, as it wings its pioneering way to an outside world.

The first voyage to the moon was, of course, an era in our earth's history; and the telling of the story, which was most deservedly secured, by a protracted patent, to our illustrious Black, made equally an era in its author's fortunes. The subject is, of course, all thoroughly way-beaten by this time, as the Lunar "Bradshaw" of to-day may indicate. Nevertheless, there is still an interest in glancing back at a few particulars of this great pioneering expedition. In spite of all precautionary mental preparation, the appalling blackness of space, on emerging clear of the earth's atmosphere, was something barely endurable to unaccustomed feeling, and from which the passengers gladly sheltered themselves within the