When I woke it was 8h. by my chronometer,
and, as I inferred, about 5h. after midnight of the Martial meridian
on which I lay. Sleep had given me an appetite for breakfast, and
necessary practical employment calmed the excitement natural to my
situation. My first care, after making ready to quit the Astronaut as
soon as the light around should render it safe to venture into scenes
so much more utterly strange, unfamiliar, and unknown than the wildest
of the yet unexplored deserts of the Earth, was to ascertain the
character of the atmosphere which I was presently to breathe. Did it
contain the oxygen essential to Tellurian lungs? Was it, if capable of
respiration, dense enough to sustain life like mine? I extracted the
plug from the tubular aperture through which I had pumped in the extra
quantity of air that the Astronaut contained; and substituted the
sliding valve I had arranged for the purpose, with a small hole which,
by adjustment to the tube, would give the means of regulating the
air-passage at pleasure. The difficulty of this simple work, and the
tremendous outward pressure of the air, showed that the external
atmosphere was very thin indeed.
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