CLOUDY WEATHER.
At the moment when the pyramid of flame rose to a prodigious height in
the air it lighted up the whole of Florida, and for an incalculable
moment day was substituted for night over a considerable extent of
country. This immense column of fire was perceived for a hundred miles
out at sea, from the Gulf and from the Atlantic, and more than one
ship's captain noted the apparition of this gigantic meteor in his
log-book.
The discharge of the Columbiad was accompanied by a veritable
earthquake. Florida was shaken to its very depths. The gases of the
powder, expanded by heat, forced back the atmospheric strata with
tremendous violence, passing like a waterspout through the air.
Not one spectator remained on his legs; men, women, and children were
thrown down like ears of wheat in a storm; there was a terrible tumult,
and a large number of people were seriously injured. J.T. Maston, who
had very imprudently kept to the fore, was thrown twenty yards backwards
like a bullet over the heads of his fellow-citizens. Three hundred
thousand people were temporarily deafened and as though thunderstruck.
The atmospheric current, after throwing over huts and cabins, uprooting
trees within a radius of twenty miles, throwing the trains off the
railway as far as Tampa, burst upon the town like an avalanche and
destroyed a hundred houses, amongst others the church of St. Mary and
the new edifice of the Exchange. Some of the vessels in the port were
run against each other and sunk, and ten of them were stranded high and
dry after breaking their chains like threads of cotton.
But the circle of these devastations extended farther still, and beyond
the limits of the United States. The recoil, aided by the westerly
winds, was felt on the Atlantic at more than 300 miles from the American
shores. An unexpected tempest, which even Admiral Fitzroy could not have
foreseen, broke upon the ships with unheard-of violence. Several
vessels, seized by a sort of whirlwind before they had time to furl
their sails, were sunk, amongst others the _Childe Harold_, of
Liverpool, a regrettable catastrophe which was the object of lively
recriminations.
Lastly--although the fact is not warranted except by the affirmation of
a few natives--half-an-hour after the departure of the projectile the
inhabitants of Sierra-Leone pretended that they heard a dull noise, the
last displacement of the sonorous waves, which, after crossing the
Atlantic, died away on the African coast.
But to return to Florida. The tumult once lessened, the wounded and
deaf--in short, all the crowd--rose and shouted in a sort of frenzy,
"Hurrah for Ardan! Hurrah for Barbicane! Hurrah for Nicholl!" Several
millions of men, nose in air, armed with telescopes and every species of
field-glass, looked into space, forgetting contusions and feelings, in
order to look at the projectile. But they sought in vain; it was not to
be seen, and they resolved to await the telegrams from Long's Peak. The
director of the Cambridge Observatory, M. Belfast, was at his post in
the Rocky Mountains, and it was to this skilful and persevering
astronomer that the observations had been entrusted.
But an unforeseen phenomenon, against which nothing could be done, soon
came to put public impatience to a rude test.
The weather, so fine before, suddenly changed; the sky became covered
with clouds. It could not be otherwise after so great a displacement of
the atmospheric strata and the dispersion of the enormous quantity of
gases from the combustion of 200,000 lbs. of pyroxyle. All natural order
had been disturbed. There is nothing astonishing in that, for in
sea-fights it has been noticed that the state of the atmosphere has been
suddenly changed by the artillery discharge.
The next day the sun rose upon an horizon covered with thick clouds, a
heavy and an impenetrable curtain hung between earth and sky, and which
unfortunately extended as far as the regions of the Rocky Mountains. It
was a fatality. A concert of complaints rose from all parts of the
globe. But Nature took no notice, and as men had chosen to disturb the
atmosphere with their gun, they must submit to the consequences.
During this first day every one tried to pierce the thick veil of
clouds, but no one was rewarded for the trouble; besides, they were all
mistaken in supposing they could see it by looking up at the sky, for on
account of the diurnal movement of the globe the projectile was then, of
course, shooting past the line of the antipodes.
However that might be, when night again enveloped the earth--a dark,
impenetrable night--it was impossible to see the moon above the horizon;
it might have been thought that she was hiding on purpose from the bold
beings who had shot at her. No observation was, therefore, possible, and
the despatches from Long's Peak confirmed the disastrous intelligence.
However, if the experiment had succeeded, the travellers, who had
started on the 1st of December, at 10h. 46m. 40s. p.m., were due at
their destination on the 4th at midnight; so that as up to that time it
would, after all, have been difficult to observe a body so small, people
waited with all the patience they could muster.
On the 4th of December, from 8 p.m. till midnight, it would have been
possible to follow the trace of the projectile, which would have
appeared like a black speck on the shining disc of the moon. But the
weather remained imperturbably cloudy, and exasperated the public, who
swore at the moon for not showing herself. _Sic transit gloria mundi_!
J.T. Maston, in despair, set out for Long's Peak. He wished to make an
observation himself. He did not doubt that his friends had arrived at
the goal of their journey. No one had heard that the projectile had
fallen upon any continent or island upon earth, and J.T. Maston did not
admit for a moment that it could have fallen into any of the oceans with
which the earth is three parts covered.
On the 5th the same weather. The large telescopes of the old
world--those of Herschel, Rosse, and Foucault--were invariably fixed
upon the Queen of Night, for the weather was magnificent in Europe, but
the relative weakness of these instruments prevented any useful
observation.
On the 6th the same weather reigned. Impatience devoured three parts of
the globe. The most insane means were proposed for dissipating the
clouds accumulated in the air.
On the 7th the sky seemed to clear a little. Hopes revived but did not
last long, and in the evening thick clouds defended the starry vault
against all eyes.
Things now became grave. In fact, on the 11th, at 9.11 a.m., the moon
would enter her last quarter. After this delay she would decline every
day, and even if the sky should clear the chances of observation would
be considerably lessened--in fact, the moon would then show only a
constantly-decreasing portion of her disc, and would end by becoming
new--that is to say, she would rise and set with the sun, whose rays
would make her quite invisible. They would, therefore, be obliged to
wait till the 3rd of January, at 12.43 p.m., till she would be full
again and ready for observation.
The newspapers published these reflections with a thousand commentaries,
and did not fail to tell the public that it must arm itself with angelic
patience.
On the 8th no change. On the 9th the sun appeared for a moment, as if to
jeer at the Americans. It was received with hisses, and wounded,
doubtless, by such a reception, it was very miserly of its rays.
On the 10th no change. J.T. Maston nearly went mad, and fears were
entertained for his brain until then so well preserved in its
gutta-percha cranium.
But on the 11th one of those frightful tempests peculiar to tropical
regions was let loose in the atmosphere. Terrific east winds swept away
the clouds which had been so long there, and in the evening the
half-disc of the moon rode majestically amidst the limpid constellations
of the sky.