CHAPTER II. President Barbicane’s Communication
CHAPTER III. Effect of the President’s Communication
CHAPTER IV. Reply From the Observatory of Cambridge
CHAPTER V. The Romance of the Moon
CHAPTER VI. The Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States
CHAPTER VII. The Hymn of the Cannon-Ball
CHAPTER VIII. History of the Cannon
CHAPTER IX. The Question of the Powders
CHAPTER X. One Enemy _v._ Twenty-Five Millions of Friends
CHAPTER XI. Florida and Texas
CHAPTER XII. Urbi et Orbi
CHAPTER XIII. Stones Hill
CHAPTER XIV. Pickaxe and Trowel
CHAPTER XV. The Fete of the Casting
CHAPTER XVI. The Columbiad
CHAPTER XVII. A Telegraphic Dispatch
CHAPTER XVIII. The Passenger of the Atlanta
CHAPTER XIX. A Monster Meeting
CHAPTER XX. Attack and Riposte
CHAPTER XXI. How A Frenchman Manages An Affair
CHAPTER XXII. The New Citizen of the United States
CHAPTER XXIII. The Projectile-Vehicle
CHAPTER XXIV. The Telescope of the Rocky Mountains
CHAPTER XXV. Final Details
CHAPTER XXVI. Fire!
CHAPTER XXVII. Foul Weather
CHAPTER XXVIII. A New Star
Contents: Round the Moon
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER—Recapitulating the First Part of
This Work, and Serving as a Preface to the Second
CHAPTER I. From Twenty Minutes Past Ten to Forty-Seven Minutes Past Ten P. M.
CHAPTER II. The First Half Hour
CHAPTER III. Their Place of Shelter
CHAPTER IV. A Little Algebra
CHAPTER V. The Cold of Space
CHAPTER VI. Question and Answer
CHAPTER VII. A Moment of Intoxication
CHAPTER VIII.At Seventy-Eight Thousand Five Hundred and Fourteen Leagues
CHAPTER IX. The Consequences of A Deviation
CHAPTER X. The Observers of the Moon
CHAPTER XI. Fancy and Reality
CHAPTER XII. Orographic Details
CHAPTER XIII. Lunar Landscapes
CHAPTER XIV. The Night of Three Hundred and Fifty-Four Hours and A Half
CHAPTER XV. Hyperbola or Parabola
CHAPTER XVI. The Southern Hemisphere
CHAPTER XVII. Tycho
CHAPTER XVIII. Grave Questions
CHAPTER XIX. A Struggle Against the Impossible
CHAPTER XX. The Soundings of the Susquehanna
CHAPTER XXI. J. T. Maston Recalled
CHAPTER XXII. Recovered From the Sea
CHAPTER XXIII. The End
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
CHAPTER I.
THE GUN CLUB
During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was
established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland. It is
well known with what energy the taste for military matters became
developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers, and mechanics.
Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become extemporized captains,
colonels, and generals, without having ever passed the School of
Instruction at West Point; nevertheless; they quickly rivaled their
compeers of the old continent, and, like them, carried off victories by
dint of lavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men.
But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the Europeans
was in the science of _gunnery_. Not, indeed, that their weapons
retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs, but that they
exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and consequently attained hitherto
unheard-of ranges. In point of grazing, plunging, oblique, or
enfilading, or point-blank firing, the English, French, and Prussians
have nothing to learn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are
mere pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the
American artillery.
This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the first mechanicians in
the world, are engineers—just as the Italians are musicians and the
Germans metaphysicians—by right of birth. Nothing is more natural,
therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to
the science of gunnery. Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and
Rodman. The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to
bow before their transatlantic rivals.
Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American
to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two
secretaries. Given _four_, they name a keeper of records, and the
office is ready for work; _five_, they convene a general meeting, and
the club is fully constituted. So things were managed in Baltimore. The
inventor of a new cannon associated himself with the caster and the
borer. Thus was formed the nucleus of the “Gun Club.” In a single month
after its formation it numbered 1,833 effective members and 30,565
corresponding members.
One condition was imposed as a _sine quâ non_ upon every candidate for
admission into the association, and that was the condition of having
designed, or (more or less) perfected a cannon; or, in default of a
cannon, at least a firearm of some description. It may, however, be
mentioned that mere inventors of revolvers, fire-shooting carbines, and
similar small arms, met with little consideration. Artillerists always
commanded the chief place of favor.
The estimation in which these gentlemen were held, according to one of
the most scientific exponents of the Gun Club, was “proportional to the
masses of their guns, and in the direct ratio of the square of the
distances attained by their projectiles.”
The Gun Club once founded, it is easy to conceive the result of the
inventive genius of the Americans. Their military weapons attained
colossal proportions, and their projectiles, exceeding the prescribed
limits, unfortunately occasionally cut in two some unoffending
pedestrians. These inventions, in fact, left far in the rear the timid
instruments of European artillery.
It is but fair to add that these Yankees, brave as they have ever
proved themselves to be, did not confine themselves to theories and
formulae, but that they paid heavily, _in propriâ personâ_, for their
inventions. Among them were to be counted officers of all ranks, from
lieutenants to generals; military men of every age, from those who were
just making their _début_ in the profession of arms up to those who had
grown old in the gun-carriage. Many had found their rest on the field
of battle whose names figured in the “Book of Honor” of the Gun Club;
and of those who made good their return the greater proportion bore the
marks of their indisputable valor. Crutches, wooden legs, artificial
arms, steel hooks, caoutchouc jaws, silver craniums, platinum noses,
were all to be found in the collection; and it was calculated by the
great statistician Pitcairn that throughout the Gun Club there was not
quite one arm between four persons and two legs between six.
Nevertheless, these valiant artillerists took no particular account of
these little facts, and felt justly proud when the despatches of a
battle returned the number of victims at ten-fold the quantity of
projectiles expended.
One day, however—sad and melancholy day!—peace was signed between the
survivors of the war; the thunder of the guns gradually ceased, the
mortars were silent, the howitzers were muzzled for an indefinite
period, the cannon, with muzzles depressed, were returned into the
arsenal, the shot were repiled, all bloody reminiscences were effaced;
the cotton-plants grew luxuriantly in the well-manured fields, all
mourning garments were laid aside, together with grief; and the Gun
Club was relegated to profound inactivity.
Some few of the more advanced and inveterate theorists set themselves
again to work upon calculations regarding the laws of projectiles. They
reverted invariably to gigantic shells and howitzers of unparalleled
caliber. Still in default of practical experience what was the value of
mere theories? Consequently, the clubrooms became deserted, the
servants dozed in the antechambers, the newspapers grew mouldy on the
tables, sounds of snoring came from dark corners, and the members of
the Gun Club, erstwhile so noisy in their seances, were reduced to
silence by this disastrous peace and gave themselves up wholly to
dreams of a Platonic kind of artillery.
“This is horrible!” said Tom Hunter one evening, while rapidly
carbonizing his wooden legs in the fireplace of the smoking-room;
“nothing to do! nothing to look forward to! what a loathsome existence!
When again shall the guns arouse us in the morning with their
delightful reports?”
“Those days are gone by,” said jolly Bilsby, trying to extend his
missing arms. “It was delightful once upon a time! One invented a gun,
and hardly was it cast, when one hastened to try it in the face of the
enemy! Then one returned to camp with a word of encouragement from
Sherman or a friendly shake of the hand from McClellan. But now the
generals are gone back to their counters; and in place of projectiles,
they despatch bales of cotton. By Jove, the future of gunnery in
America is lost!”
“Ay! and no war in prospect!” continued the famous James T. Maston,
scratching with his steel hook his gutta-percha cranium. “Not a cloud
on the horizon! and that too at such a critical period in the progress
of the science of artillery! Yes, gentlemen! I who address you have
myself this very morning perfected a model (plan, section, elevation,
etc.) of a mortar destined to change all the conditions of warfare!”
“No! is it possible?” replied Tom Hunter, his thoughts reverting
involuntarily to a former invention of the Hon. J. T. Maston, by which,
at its first trial, he had succeeded in killing three hundred and
thirty-seven people.
“Fact!” replied he. “Still, what is the use of so many studies worked
out, so many difficulties vanquished? It’s mere waste of time! The New
World seems to have made up its mind to live in peace; and our
bellicose _Tribune_ predicts some approaching catastrophes arising out
of this scandalous increase of population.”
“Nevertheless,” replied Colonel Blomsberry, “they are always struggling
in Europe to maintain the principle of nationalities.”
“Well?”
“Well, there might be some field for enterprise down there; and if they
would accept our services—”
“What are you dreaming of?” screamed Bilsby; “work at gunnery for the
benefit of foreigners?”
“That would be better than doing nothing here,” returned the colonel.
“Quite so,” said J. T. Matson; “but still we need not dream of that
expedient.”
“And why not?” demanded the colonel.
“Because their ideas of progress in the Old World are contrary to our
American habits of thought. Those fellows believe that one can’t become
a general without having served first as an ensign; which is as much as
to say that one can’t point a gun without having first cast it
oneself!”
“Ridiculous!” replied Tom Hunter, whittling with his bowie-knife the
arms of his easy chair; “but if that be the case there, all that is
left for us is to plant tobacco and distill whale-oil.”
“What!” roared J. T. Maston, “shall we not employ these remaining years
of our life in perfecting firearms? Shall there never be a fresh
opportunity of trying the ranges of projectiles? Shall the air never
again be lighted with the glare of our guns? No international
difficulty ever arise to enable us to declare war against some
transatlantic power? Shall not the French sink one of our steamers, or
the English, in defiance of the rights of nations, hang a few of our
countrymen?”
“No such luck,” replied Colonel Blomsberry; “nothing of the kind is
likely to happen; and even if it did, we should not profit by it.
American susceptibility is fast declining, and we are all going to the
dogs.”
“It is too true,” replied J. T. Maston, with fresh violence; “there are
a thousand grounds for fighting, and yet we don’t fight. We save up our
arms and legs for the benefit of nations who don’t know what to do with
them! But stop—without going out of one’s way to find a cause for
war—did not North America once belong to the English?”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Tom Hunter, stamping his crutch with fury.
“Well, then,” replied J. T. Maston, “why should not England in her turn
belong to the Americans?”
“It would be but just and fair,” returned Colonel Blomsberry.
“Go and propose it to the President of the United States,” cried J. T.
Maston, “and see how he will receive you.”
“Bah!” growled Bilsby between the four teeth which the war had left
him; “that will never do!”
“By Jove!” cried J. T. Maston, “he mustn’t count on my vote at the next
election!”
“Nor on ours,” replied unanimously all the bellicose invalids.
“Meanwhile,” replied J. T. Maston, “allow me to say that, if I cannot
get an opportunity to try my new mortars on a real field of battle, I
shall say good-by to the members of the Gun Club, and go and bury
myself in the prairies of Arkansas!”
“In that case we will accompany you,” cried the others.
Matters were in this unfortunate condition, and the club was threatened
with approaching dissolution, when an unexpected circumstance occurred
to prevent so deplorable a catastrophe.
On the morrow after this conversation every member of the association
received a sealed circular couched in the following terms:
BALTIMORE, October 3. The president of the Gun Club has the honor to
inform his colleagues that, at the meeting of the 5th instant, he will
bring before them a communication of an extremely interesting nature.
He requests, therefore, that they will make it convenient to attend in
accordance with the present invitation. Very cordially, IMPEY
BARBICANE, P.G.C.