Yes? Then, before we began even to
build the moon, before we even began to make the brick,
we would build two gigantic fly-wheels, the diameter of
each should be "ever so great," the circumference heavy
beyond all precedent, and thundering strong, so that no
temptation might burst it. They should revolve, their
edges nearly touching, in opposite directions, for years,
if it were necessary, to accumulate power, driven by some
waterfall now wasted to the world. One should be a
little heavier than the other. When the Brick Moon was
finished, and all was ready, IT should be gently rolled
down a gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted
on the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of
course it would not rest there, not the ten-thousandth
part of a second. It would be snapped upward, as a drop
of water from a grindstone. Upward and upward; but the
heavier wheel would have deflected it a little from the
vertical. Upward and northward it would rise, therefore,
till it had passed the axis of the world. It would, of
course, feel the world's attraction all the time, which
would bend its flight gently, but still it would leave
the world more and more behind. Upward still, but now
southward, till it had traversed more than one hundred
and eighty degrees of a circle. Little resistance,
indeed, after it had cleared the forty or fifty miles of
visible atmosphere.
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