noon
During the rest of the night the body was watched , turn by turn , by the three travellers , and not a word disturbed the solemn silence . Each of them was weeping . The next day the wind came from the south , and the balloon moved slowly over a vast plateau of mountains : there , were extinct craters ; here , barren ravines ; not a drop of water on those parched crests ; piles of broken rocks ; huge stony masses scattered hither and thither , and , interspersed with whitish marl , all indicated the most complete sterility . Toward noon , the doctor , for the purpose of burying the body , decided to descend into a ravine , in the midst of some plutonic rocks of primitive formation . The surrounding mountains would shelter him , and enable him to bring his car to the ground , for there was no tree in sight to which he could make it fast . But , as he had explained to Kennedy , it was now impossible for him to descend , except by releasing a quantity of gas proportionate to his loss of ballast at the time when he had rescued the missionary . He therefore opened the valve of the outside balloon .