Каарон Уоррен - The Lowest Heaven

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,

From which we may deduce that Jupitter is a vaprous world, such as could not be if its weight were consummate with its great size (as Neuton affirms), or those vapours would be drawn out of the sky to fall as rain and the obscurant clouds would clear away, as may be observ’d in the case the Earth .

Concerning the Patien race

As to whether the Patien specie have the knowledge to explain this anomalous circumstance I do not know, and some affirm they lack all knowledge themselves, and are mere clowns, or puppets, of some greater power. For (it is said by some) it may be that the Patien are not the inventors of the devices and vessels we call theirs, but only receiv’d them as gifts from a Higher race—or pilfer’d them from thence—much as we have come by such devices as are ours. Certain the Patien have not that force about their affaires such as we might think fitting for great inventors, and on the contrary seem distrait and eccentric; for all remarck how great a chance they daily miss to subdue the whole world with their advantages over us.

But I disbelieve this story myself, for if the Patien are not the progenitors of their machines, but took them from another race, then where is this race? Why have they permitted their advances to be stol’n? Why come they not hither to retrieve it? And as to the Patien claim, that they have come hither from the Pole star, which is Polaris; I believe this may be after the manner of some jest or riddle of their own; for it has been assiduously ascertained by the Chevalier de Mouhy and others that the fix’d stars are too distant for such voyaging. A Cannon-Bullet shot from the Earth must require 26 years in passing from hence to the Sun, and with the same Velocity wherewith it was discharged, it would require, in order to arrive at the fix’d Stars almost Seven hundred thousand Years: and a Ship that can sail 50 miles in a Day and a Night, will require 30,430,400 Years. As to the suppos’d Immortality of the Patien, I do not believe; for I have seen old ones as well as young, and seen that when cut they bleed, tho’ it is a curious form of blood, coloured like as milk or buttermilk; and besides, to advert Immortality to any Being not explicitly Divine is a blasphemous derogation of God’s Will in this Univers . It does less violence to credulity to believe the Patien come from some other world in orbit of the Sun, Mars as some say; which if Dobrée is to be believ’d (and there is much that is hard to credit in his Voyage á le Monde Martien ) is near as desart and ayrless as the Moon herself. Some will say that Dobrée reported seeing none of the Patien race upon Mars in his time there; to which I reply, 1, that it being a world entire, it ought not offend our reason to believe that some parts are more inhabited than others, for if a visitor came to our world he might as well stop in the Afric desart and declare the whole globe void of population, as make any such categorical statement regarding Mars; and, 2, that Dobrée so poorly provision’d for his voyage, especially in consideration of ayr, but water also, that his crew, all but one, perish’d on the return, and both he and Valtat were driven from their wits with the suffering of it, such that I doubt a court of law in London would accept his testimony as gospel in any tryal or deposition. But this and other pedantic questioning may best be left for future expeditions to that Scarlet world to determine.

What else can be said of the Patiens is that cold incommodes them not at all, nor heat, nor thinness of ayr; but as to how their boddies are constituted, with what Juices their Veins are supply’d, and what Sense they are capable of, we can but say that their Life is other than Ours. They exist according to an other logick of life, and distribute their Governance according to a different oeconomy entire, which I am perswaded after all my dealings with them.

The Cristal House

I shall give a brief account of the Cristal House maintained upon the moon at the pleasure of His Catholick Majesty. It is a very spacious demense, and easy to traverse, for the lightness of the boddy under Lunar influence permits great leaps and gallops. The smell of the dust, there, is offensive, and reeks like gunpowder; although I was assur’d by those dwelling there it is not combustible. This, where the Peruvians have widely water’d the lunar soil, first covering this with such roofage as expand about a quantity of 2 or 3 acre, making a soft black ouze they claim very quick in the cultivation of yams and fruit; and certain the vegetables grow to prodigious sizes, much priz’d for this on the home market. But the expence of maintaining such an establishment is hardly to be defray’d by such market-gardening. I spoke to one who said that, the vegetation breath’d such virtue into the ayr that it would render needless the importation of breathable vapour from the Earth, were it not that the lunar nights grow so cold, and last fully a fortnight long, that the inhabitants of that house are oblig’d to light fires all about to prevent the crops parching with the freeze, and these flames do devour the air that would otherwise be available for the breathing of the inhabitants. But the prestige of maintaining their establishment is great, and the hope, although it is but rarely fulfill’d, of chancing upon discarded ordnance of the Patiens race, comprize sufficient reason for the difficulty of the undertaking.