FOUL WEATHER
At the moment when that pyramid of fire rose to a prodigious height
into the air, the glare of flame lit up the whole of Florida; and for a
moment day superseded night over a considerable extent of the country.
This immense canopy of fire was perceived at a distance of one hundred
miles out at sea, and more than one ship’s captain entered in his log
the appearance of this gigantic meteor.
The discharge of the Columbiad was accompanied by a perfect earthquake.
Florida was shaken to its very depths. The gases of the powder,
expanded by heat, forced back the atmospheric strata with tremendous
violence, and this artificial hurricane rushed like a water-spout
through the air.
Not a single spectator remained on his feet! Men, women children, all
lay prostrate like ears of corn under a tempest. There ensued a
terrible tumult; a large number of persons were seriously injured. J.
T. Maston, who, despite all dictates of prudence, had kept in advance
of the mass, was pitched back 120 feet, shooting like a projectile over
the heads of his fellow-citizens. Three hundred thousand persons
remained deaf for a time, and as though struck stupefied.
As soon as the first effects were over, the injured, the deaf, and
lastly, the crowd in general, woke up with frenzied cries. “Hurrah for
Ardan! Hurrah for Barbicane! Hurrah for Nicholl!” rose to the skies.
Thousands of persons, noses in air, armed with telescopes and
race-glasses, were questioning space, forgetting all contusions and
emotions in the one idea of watching for the projectile. They looked in
vain! It was no longer to be seen, and they were obliged to wait for
telegrams from Long’s Peak. The director of the Cambridge Observatory
was at his post on the Rocky Mountains; and to him, as a skillful and
persevering astronomer, all observations had been confided.
But an unforeseen phenomenon came in to subject the public impatience
to a severe trial.
The weather, hitherto so fine, suddenly changed; the sky became heavy
with clouds. It could not have been otherwise after the terrible
derangement of the atmospheric strata, and the dispersion of the
enormous quantity of vapor arising from the combustion of 200,000
pounds of pyroxyle!
On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds—a thick and
impenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappily extended as
far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality! But since man had chosen
so to disturb the atmosphere, he was bound to accept the consequences
of his experiment.
Supposing, now, that the experiment had succeeded, the travelers having
started on the 1st of December, at 10h. 46m. 40s. P.M., were due on the
4th at 0h. P.M. at their destination. So that up to that time it would
have been very difficult after all to have observed, under such
conditions, a body so small as the shell. Therefore they waited with
what patience they might.
From the 4th to the 6th of December inclusive, the weather remaining
much the same in America, the great European instruments of Herschel,
Rosse, and Foucault, were constantly directed toward the moon, for the
weather was then magnificent; but the comparative weakness of their
glasses prevented any trustworthy observations being made.
On the 7th the sky seemed to lighten. They were in hopes now, but their
hope was of but short duration, and at night again thick clouds hid the
starry vault from all eyes.
Matters were now becoming serious, when on the 9th the sun reappeared
for an instant, as if for the purpose of teasing the Americans. It was
received with hisses; and wounded, no doubt, by such a reception,
showed itself very sparing of its rays.
On the 10th, no change! J. T. Maston went nearly mad, and great fears
were entertained regarding the brain of this worthy individual, which
had hitherto been so well preserved within his gutta-percha cranium.
But on the 11th one of those inexplicable tempests peculiar to those
intertropical regions was let loose in the atmosphere. A terrific east
wind swept away the groups of clouds which had been so long gathering,
and at night the semi-disc of the orb of night rode majestically amid
the soft constellations of the sky.