About half past twelve o'clock
I am rather inclined to believe myself that not one word of Ardan 's rhapsody had been ever heard by Barbican or M'Nicholl . Long before he had spoken his last words , they had once more become mute as statues , and now were both eagerly watching , pencil in hand , spyglass to eye , the northern lunar hemisphere towards which they were rapidly but indirectly approaching . They had fully made up their minds by this time that they were leaving far behind them the central point which they would have probably reached half an hour ago if they had not been shunted off their course by that inopportune bolide . About half past twelve o'clock , Barbican broke the dead silence by saying that after a careful calculation they were now only about 875 miles from the Moon 's surface , a distance two hundred miles less in length than the lunar radius , and which was still to be diminished as they advanced further north . They were at that moment ten degrees north of the equator , almost directly over the ridge lying between the _ Mare Serenitatis _ and the _ Mare Tranquillitatis _ . From this latitude all the way up to the north pole the travellers enjoyed a most satisfactory view of the Moon in all directions and under the most favorable conditions . By means of their spyglasses , magnifying a hundred times , they cut down this distance of 875 miles to about 9 .