ONE ENEMY _v._ TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.
The American public took a lively interest in the smallest details of
the enterprise of the Gun Club. It followed day by day the discussions of
the committee. The most simple preparation for the great experiment, the
questions of figures which it involved, the mechanical difficulties to
be resolved—in one word, the entire plan of work—roused the popular
excitement to the highest pitch.
The purely scientific attraction was suddenly intensified by the following
incident:—
We have seen what legions of admirers and friends Barbicane's project
had rallied round its author. There was, however, one single individual
alone in all the States of the Union who protested against the attempt
of the Gun Club. He attacked it furiously on every opportunity, and human
nature is such that Barbicane felt more keenly the opposition of that one
man than he did the applause of all the others. He was well aware of the
motive of this antipathy, the origin of this solitary enmity, the cause
of its personality and old standing, and in what rivalry of self-love it
had its rise.
This persevering enemy the President of the Gun Club had never seen.
Fortunate that it was so, for a meeting between the two men would
certainly have been attended with serious consequences. This rival was a
man of science, like Barbicane himself, of a fiery, daring, and violent
disposition; a pure Yankee. His name was Captain Nicholl; he lived at
Philadelphia.
Most people are aware of the curious struggle which arose during the
Federal war between the guns and the armour of iron-plated ships. The
result was the entire reconstruction of the navy of both the continents;
as the one grew heavier, the other became thicker in proportion. The
"Merrimac," the "Monitor," the "Tennessee," the "Weehawken" discharged
enormous projectiles themselves, after having been armour-clad against
the projectiles of others. In fact they did to others that which they
would not they should do to them—that grand principle of immorality
upon which rests the whole art of war.
Now if Barbicane was a great founder of shot, Nicholl was a great forger
of plates; the one cast night and day at Baltimore, the other forged day
and night at Philadelphia. As soon as ever Barbicane invented a new shot,
Nicholl invented a new plate, each followed a current of ideas essentially
opposed to the other. Happily for these citizens, so useful to their
country, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles separated them from one
another, and they had never yet met. Which of these two inventors had
the advantage over the other it was difficult to decide from the results
obtained. By last accounts, however, it would seem that the armour-plate
would in the end have to give way to the shot; nevertheless, there were
competent judges who had their doubts on the point.
At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles of Barbicane stuck
like so many pins in the Nicholl plates. On that day the Philadelphia
iron-forger then believed himself victorious, and could not evince
contempt enough for his rival; but when the other afterwards substituted
for conical shot simple 600 lb. shells, at very moderate velocity, the
captain was obliged to give in. In fact, these projectiles knocked his
best metal plate to shivers.
Matters were at this stage, and victory seemed to rest with the shot,
when the war came to an end on the very day when Nicholl had completed
a new armour-plate of wrought steel. It was a masterpiece of its kind,
and bid defiance to all the projectiles in the world. The captain had it
conveyed to the Polygon at Washington, challenging the President of the
Gun Club to break it. Barbicane, peace having been declared, declined to
try the experiment.
Illustration: NICHOLL PUBLISHED A NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE
NEWSPAPERS.
Nicholl, now furious, offered to expose his plate to the shock of any
shot, solid, hollow, round, or conical. Refused by the president, who
did not choose to compromise his last success.
Nicholl, disgusted by this obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicane by offering
him every chance. He proposed to fix the plate within two hundred yards
of the gun. Barbicane still obstinate in refusal. A hundred yards? Not
even _seventy-five!_
"At fifty then!" roared the captain through the newspapers. "At twenty-five
yards!! and I'll stand behind!!!"
Barbicane returned for answer that, even if Captain Nicholl would be so
good as to stand in front, he would not fire any more.
Nicholl could not contain himself at this reply; threw out hints of
cowardice; that a man who refused to fire a cannon-shot was pretty near
being afraid of it; that artillerists who fight at six miles' distance
are substituting mathematical formulas for individual courage.
To these insinuations Barbicane returned no answer; perhaps he never
heard of them, so absorbed was he in the calculations for his great
enterprise.
When his famous communication was made to the Gun Club, the captain's
wrath passed all bounds; with his intense jealousy was mingled a feeling
of absolute impotence. How was he to invent anything to beat this 900-feet
Columbiad? What armour-plate could ever resist a projectile of 30,000
lbs. weight? Overwhelmed at first under this violent shock, he by and by
recovered himself, and resolved to crush the proposal by the weight of
his arguments.
He then violently attacked the labours of the Gun Club, published a
number of letters in the newspapers, endeavoured to prove Barbicane
ignorant of the first principles of gunnery. He maintained that it was
absolutely impossible to impress upon any body whatever a velocity of
12,000 yards per second; that even with such a velocity a projectile of
such a weight could not transcend the limits of the earth's atmosphere.
Further still, even regarding the velocity to be acquired, and granting
it to be sufficient, the shell could not resist the pressure of the gas
developed by the ignition of 1,600,000 lbs. of powder; and supposing
it to resist that pressure, it would be the less able to support that
temperature; it would melt on quitting the Columbiad, and fall back in
a red-hot shower upon the heads of the imprudent spectators.
Barbicane continued his work without regarding these attacks.
Nicholl then took up the question in its other aspects. Without touching
upon its uselessness in all points of view, he regarded the experiment
as fraught with extreme danger, both to the citizens, who might sanction
by their presence so reprehensible a spectacle, and also to the towns
in the neighbourhood of this deplorable cannon. He also observed that
if the projectile did not succeed in reaching its destination (a result
absolutely impossible), it must inevitably fall back upon the earth,
and that the shock of such a mass, multiplied by the square of its
velocity, would seriously endanger every point of the globe. Under the
circumstances, therefore, and without interfering with the rights of free
citizens, it was a case for the intervention of Government, which ought
not to endanger the safety of all for the pleasure of one individual.
Spite of all his arguments, however, Captain Nicholl remained alone in
his opinion. Nobody listened to him, and he did not succeed in alienating
a single admirer from the President of the Gun Club. The latter did not
even take the pains to refute the arguments of his rival.
Nicholl, driven into his last entrenchments, and not able to fight
personally in the cause, resolved to fight with money. He published,
therefore, in the _Richmond Inquirer_ a series of wagers, conceived in
these terms, and on an increasing scale:—
No. 1 (1000 dols.).—That the necessary funds for the experiment of the
Gun Club will not be forthcoming.
No. 2 (2000 dols.).—That the operation of casting a cannon of 900 feet
is impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed.
No. 3 (3000 dols.).—That it is impossible to load the Columbiad, and
that the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under the pressure of the
projectile.
No. 4 (4000 dols.).—That the Columbiad will burst at the first fire.
No. 5 (5000 dols.).—That the shot will not travel farther than six
miles, and that it will fall back again a few seconds after its discharge.
It was an important sum, therefore, which the captain risked in his
invincible obstinacy. He had no less than 15,000 dollars at stake.
Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of May
he received a sealed packet containing the following superbly laconic
reply:—
"Baltimore, _Oct._ 19.
"Done.
"Barbicane."