1
a.m. on the 8th of December
In order to calculate that moment to within some seconds Barbicane had only to have recourse to his travelling notes , and to take the different altitudes from lunar parallels . Thus the time employed in going over the distance between the neutral point and the South Pole must be equal to the distance which separates the South Pole from the neutral point . The hours representing the time it took were carefully noted down , and the calculation became easy . Barbicane found that this point would be reached by the projectile at 1 a.m. on the 8th of December . It was then 3 a.m. on the 7th of December . Therefore , if nothing intervened , the projectile would reach the neutral point in twenty-two hours . The rockets had been put in their places to slacken the fall of the bullet upon the moon , and now the bold fellows were going to use them to provoke an exactly contrary effect .