Besides, to return is a problem of comparatively easy solution: we should have to overcome the lunar attraction only--a slight matter--the rest of the business would be readily done by gravity." "Enough said on the subject!" exclaimed Ardan curtly; "how to get back is indefinitely postponed! How to communicate with our friends on the Earth, is another matter, and, as it seems to me, an extremely easy one." "Let us hear the very easy means by which you propose to communicate with our friends on Earth," asked the Captain, with a sneer, for he was by this time a little out of humor.
"By means of bolides ejected from the lunar volcanoes," replied the Frenchman without an instant's hesitation.
"Well said, friend Ardan," exclaimed Barbican.

"I am quite disposed to acknowledge the feasibility of your plan.

Laplace has calculated that a force five times greater than that of an ordinary cannon would be sufficient to send a bolide from the Moon to the Earth.

Now there is no cannon that can vie in force with even the smallest volcano." "Hurrah!" cried Ardan, delighted at his success; "just imagine the pleasure of sending our letters postage free! But--oh! what a splendid idea!--Dolts that we were for not thinking of it sooner!" "Let us have the splendid idea!" cried the Captain, with some of his old acrimony.
"Why didn't we fasten a wire to the Projectile ?" asked Ardan, triumphantly, "It would have enabled us to exchange telegrams with the Earth!" "Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Captain, rapidly recovering his good humor; "decidedly the best joke of the season! Ha! ha! ha! Of course you have calculated the weight of a wire 240 thousand miles long ?" "No matter about its weight!" cried the Frenchman impetuously; "we should have laughed at its weight! We could have tripled the charge of the Columbiad; we could have quadrupled it!--aye, quintupled it, if necessary!" he added in tones evidently increasing in loudness and violence.
"Yes, friend Michael," observed Barbican; "but there is a slight and unfortunately a fatal defect in your project.

The Earth, by its rotation, would have wrapped our wire around herself, like thread around a spool, and dragged us back almost with the speed of lightning!" "By the Nine gods of Porsena!" cried Ardan, "something is wrong with my head to-day! My brain is out of joint, and I am making as nice a mess of things as my friend Marston was ever capable of! By the bye--talking of Marston--if we never return to the Earth, what is to prevent him from following us to the Moon ?" "Nothing!" replied Barbican; "he is a faithful friend and a reliable comrade.