As for the Propulse itself, it is a manner of seven-tine starr’d structure, of weight equivalent to a small cannon but spread thin, and constructed not of metal, altho’ it is of a substance akin to metal. As to the operation of this device, it is easy enough to deduce it, for all that the Guild pretends it is of passing secrecy and difficulty; for each of the tines may be operated independent, or in any combination, by the scraping of a blade or rod along the groove in each, as I have often observ’d the Pilota doing; and in truth it was only my respect for the terms of the Royal Guild Charter, and my own Commission, and not any insufficiency in my own skill, that prevented me kicking the Pilot (a fellow given to insolence of address when speaking to me, by name Kindermann, out of Prussia) off the Vessel. When in the lower ayr, all seven tines are needful at their greatest power, in order to keep the Vessel steady; and attempts to steer the course in amongst the turbulence below the clouds will like as not cause it to o’ertopple and crash. But above the lower ayr the matter of the atmosphear becoming so difuse, the tines may be individually activated to propell the vessel this way or that.
We set off first from Kent on a clear day, 12th June, 1726; and were delay’d at once, for the of our three balons one was indifferently ty’d to the Cometes, such that the cord broke and the balon fell away. This involv’d us in delay and expense, for, 1, the balon went into the English Canal and bobb’d, for all that I know, to France; and, 2, tho’ I instruct’d the pilot to descend immediately, yet he contin’d the ascent until he was perswaded cross-winds had become negligible, and only thence reverse the direction of travel; such that we set down again some thirty leagues away from our departing point. The Cometes having to be carried across the country, and a new balon obtained and fill’d and other sundry annoyances requir’d a further three days and near-enough £80 of extraneous expence. But we set off again, the 15th June, and had no further difficulty in quitting the Earth’s thicker ayr altogether. The experience of this flight is not unpleasing, for the motion in the lower ayr being slow’d by the need to drag our balons behind us, is neither precipitous nor startling; yet in the upper ayr the lack of obstruction to our passage means that we shoot faster and faster, as a Cannon-bullet. It is a three-night journey to reach the Moon, and the days in that place are night in all respects. Some take candles with them, but I prefer to preserve our supply of breathable and subsist on such sunlight as the portholes inmit. The road is clear; for altho’ others have affirmed the existence of rubble and other obstacles in the way, causing annoyance and worse to the fabrick of any vessel, I have not found it so. The most remarkable thing at first is that the people swim and and turn like fish in a tank, by whatsoever strange Magnetick or Nimphidic power of the high sky. Yet Custom works so strongly upon us that tho’ we find ourselves amaz’d at the first, yet soon we become us’d and even bored with the facility.
The higher sky is so capacious, and the passage rapid, it is near impossible to observe whate’er other Vessels are traversing the distance between Earth and the Moon; although I am perswaded that the Chinese and the Peruvians both make more frequent cruizes thither and back than is generally suppos’d. For the Peruvian Cristal House must be supply’d with ayr, that cannot be found except upon the Earth. And whilst the means by which the Patiens’s devices are fuell’d or power’d or do otherwise draw their means of subsistence is entirely unknown, we are in no ways restrict’d by the need to supply such fuel, or to any degree incommoded from making as many voyages as we chuse; and it is only the necessity of bringing along ayr, water and victuals for the crew that acts as any restriction upon travelling as far and often as we might wish. I do believe the Americans ply the distance on a continual round, such that their Cristal House lose nothing in the cleanness of its atmosphear, and afterwards had occasion to confirm.
The Moon appears at first in the porthole no larger than it does from the ground upon our own Mundus; and a full day may pass before any increase in dimension be observ’d; but by the third day it is large enough to make out the structures upon it, and by the fifth it fills the view. Here the Pilot reverses the action of the Propulse, which caus’d the fabrick of the Cometes to tremble and groan like to fly apart, and occasion’d us all grave anxiety; and also our balons, from being dragged behind, did swallow around us, and obstruct’d our vision from portholes, which was by no means conducive to good navigation. But the celerity of passage must be quench’d; and after a ten-minute of complaining it settled again. By wagging the Vessel from side to side, Kindermann clear’d one porthole, and from this was looked out upon the Selenic landscape.
There being no ayr in that place, nothing prevents a craft with access to a Patiens’ device from moving about the sky at leisure, and we made a road for ourselves according to my instructions, passing over a number of large Crateric and Ridged features. The face of the Moon being familiar to all, and the location of all structures well-mapp’d, there was no difficulty in navigating over the surface of it. Shortly thereafter we pass’d over one of the habitations of the Patiens, not far from the Crater nam’d Blenheim by us, but Sancta Maria by other nations. We could see the spread of structures, radiating out from a hub, and lit at all points by those same ever-burning lanterns two samples of which have fall’n into the hands of the Turques, as I hear it. We all clustered about the porthole and looked down to see the Patiens themselves; from the prospect of altitude reduc’d even more to insectile seeming, hurrying in and out of their houses on their incomprehensible tasks. They paid us no heed, save only one of their aerial machines, or as some assert their birds (though it looks unlike any bird) that flew up and about us and then flew away.
Soon we approach’d the Cristal House of the Peruvians; for it is but a roof’d-over Crater three leagues S.S.W of the Great Copernick Crater that is familiar to any who have cast their eye upon the Moon. My thought was: should the Spaniards ever obtain a Propulse and build a Vessel, it would present them no challenge at all to find the House and break its roof, whereby all its ayr would be lost and the crops within kill’d. We made a pass low over the structure, and admir’d its shine in the unhaz’d sunlight very much; and once passed we saw men at work on the other side of the glass tending their vegetation; and we saw also the pier, or pavement, construct’d alongside for the reception of their own ships. Shadows upon the Moon are drawn tight as draughtsman’s lines, and very stark and clear; and the light is such as not like to be forgotten. And here I instructed the pilot to set the Cometes down. It landed with some commotion, for we missed the pavement, and landed on the desart soil nearby; and moreover the landing near tipped us aside, at the which I was wrathful with Kindermann. Shortly thereafter we pass’d over one of the habitations of the Patiens Kindermann the while spoke to me very insolent, and assur’d me he had power to blacklist me from further trade with his Guild, if I thought to treat him as a slave or remitted the slightest courteous usage. I reminded him of the great sums I had defray’d, and bade him only do his job. At this Cano and Mulville took the Pilot’s side, and we endur’d an ill mood in that craft whilst awaiting the Pervuians.
They came at last, after the dust had settled; and in truth it sifted but slowly to the ground; for weight on the Moon is less than on our world. For it is the efficacy of the various worlds to cast their charm upon men in divers ways; such that to stand upon 1 planet is to be made from stone, and upon another into cork. It is accordingly a different matter entire to stand upon the Moon as it is upon the Earth; in the former place the substance of that world causeth the body to become buoyant almost to the current of floating into the ayr; yet to return again to the Earth is to become heavy again, with a sense of sinkage of body and spirit both. As to how this effect is form’d, opinion is divided, some adhering to the French school of Des Cart, some to the English of Viscount Coldstream and some the German of Neuton. Some affirm (and I do myself believe) that the Earth, as the site of the sin of Adam, was endued with weightiness as a portion of its especial curse; and that other planets surrounding the sun being free of such taint are all lighter worlds; as we can see of Jupitter, the most large; for that none have yet voyaged thither, yet it is plain that to look through a Prospective glass is to see a world, as the poet says,