At this time the Projectile itself must have looked like a streak of light, reflecting, as it did, the Sun's brilliancy on the one side and the Moon's splendor on the other.
Barbican now took a careful observation and calculated that they could not be much more than 2,000 miles from the object of their journey.

The velocity of the Projectile he calculated to be about 650 feet per second or 450 miles an hour.

They had therefore still plenty of time to reach the Moon in about four hours.

But though the bottom of the Projectile continued to turn towards the lunar surface in obedience to the law of centripetal force, the centrifugal force was still evidently strong enough to change the path which it followed into some kind of curve, the exact nature of which would be exceedingly difficult to calculate.
The careful observations that Barbican continued to take did not however prevent him from endeavoring to solve his difficult problem.

What _had_ switched them off?
The hours passed on, but brought no result.