seven o'clock in the morning
I would give twenty pistoles if we could fall upon the Cambridge Observatory and crush it , together with the whole lot of dabblers in figures which it contains . '' Suddenly a thought struck the captain , which he at once communicated to Barbicane . `` Ah ! '' said he ; `` it is seven o'clock in the morning ; we have already been gone thirty-two hours ; more than half our passage is over , and we are not falling that I am aware of . '' Barbicane did not answer , but after a rapid glance at the captain , took a pair of compasses wherewith to measure the angular distance of the terrestrial globe ; then from the lower window he took an exact observation , and noticed that the projectile was apparently stationary . Then rising and wiping his forehead , on which large drops of perspiration were standing , he put some figures on paper . Nicholl understood that the president was deducting from the terrestrial diameter the projectile 's distance from the earth .