"Yes," said Nicholl, "it will follow either a parabola or a hyperbola."
"Just so," replied Barbicane. "With a certain speed it will assume the parabola, and with a greater the hyperbola."
"I like those grand words," exclaimed Michel Ardan;"one knows directly what they mean. And pray what is your parabola, if you please?"
"My friend," answered the captain, "the parabola is a curve of the second order, the result of the section of a cone intersected by a plane parallel to one of the sides."
