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with bleeding at the nose, and other symptoms of an alarming kind,
and growing more and more inconvenient in proportion to the altitude
attained.(*3) This was a reflection of a nature somewhat startling. Was
it not probable that these symptoms would increase indefinitely, or at
least until terminated by death itself? I finally thought not. Their
origin was to be looked for in the progressive removal of the customary
atmospheric pressure upon the surface of the body, and consequent
distention of the superficial blood-vessels--not in any positive
disorganization of the animal system, as in the case of difficulty in
breathing, where the atmospheric density is chemically insufficient
for the due renovation of blood in a ventricle of the heart. Unless for
default of this renovation, I could see no reason, therefore, why
life could not be sustained even in a vacuum; for the expansion and
compression of chest, commonly called breathing, is action purely
muscular, and the cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word,
I conceived that, as the body should become habituated to the want
of atmospheric pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually
diminish--and to endure them while they continued, I relied with
confidence upon the iron hardihood of my constitution.
"
Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some, though by
no means all, the considerations which led me to form the project of
a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before you the result of an
attempt so apparently audacious in conception, and, at all events, so
utterly unparalleled in the annals of mankind.
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