and now the inhabitants of the world could again be perfectly easy. president barbicane and capt. nicholl will not again begin that enterprise so woefully miscarried, j.t. maston will not again figure out any calculations, however free from mistakes. the article of alcide pierdeux has told the truth. what the law of mechanics proves to us is that to produce a displacement of the axis of 23 degrees and 28 minutes, even with the melimelonite, a trillion cannons similar to the one which had been bored into the cliff of kilimanjaro would be necessary. but our whole sphere, bored over its whole surface, is too small to accommodate them. therefore the inhabitants of the earth may sleep in peace. to modify the conditions in which the earth is moving is beyond the efforts of humanity. it is not meet that mere humanity should change anything in the order established by our creator in the system of the universe.