PICKAXE AND TROWEL.
The same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to Tampa Town;
and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board the "Tampico" for New
Orleans. His object was to enlist an army of workmen, and to collect
together the greater part of the materials. The members of the Gun Club
remained at Tampa Town, for the purpose of setting on foot the preliminary
works by the aid of the people of the country.
Eight days after its departure, the "Tampico" returned into the bay
of Espiritu Santo, with a whole flotilla of steamboats. Murchison had
succeeded in assembling together fifteen hundred artisans. Attracted
by the high pay and considerable bounties offered by the Gun Club, he
had enlisted a choice legion of stokers, iron-founders, lime-burners,
miners, brickmakers, and artisans of every trade, without distinction of
colour. As many of these people brought their families with them, their
departure resembled a perfect emigration.
On the 31st October, at ten o'clock in the morning, the troop disembarked
on the quays of Tampa Town; and one may imagine the activity which
pervaded that little town, whose population was thus doubled in a single
day.
During the first few days they were busy discharging the cargo brought
by the flotilla, the machines, and the rations, as well as a large number
of huts constructed of iron plates, separately pieced and numbered. At
the same period Barbicane laid the first sleepers of a railway fifteen
miles in length intended to unite Stones Hill with Tampa Town. On the
first of November Barbicane quitted Tampa Town with a detachment of
workmen; and on the following day the whole town of huts was erected
round Stones Hill. This they enclosed with palisades; and in respect of
energy and activity, it might have shortly been mistaken for one of the
great cities of the Union. Everything was placed under a complete system
of dicipline, and the works were commenced in most perfect order.
The nature of the soil having been carefully examined, by means of
repeated borings, the work of excavation was fixed for the 4th of
November.
On that day Barbicane called together his foremen and addressed them as
follows:—"You are well aware, my friends, of the object with which I
have assembled you together in this wild part of Florida. Our business
is to construct a cannon measuring nine feet in its interior diameter,
six feet thick, and with a stone revetment of nineteen and a half feet
in thickness. We have, therefore, a well of sixty feet in diameter
to dig down to a depth of nine hundred feet. This great work must be
completed _within eight months,_ so that you have 2,543,400 cubic feet
of earth to excavate in 255 days; that is to say, in round numbers, 2000
cubic feet per day. That which would present no difficulty to a thousand
navvies working in open country will be of course more troublesome in
a comparatively confined space. However, the thing must be done, and
I reckon for its accomplishment upon your courage as much as upon your
skill."
At eight o'clock in the morning the first stroke of the pickaxe was
struck upon the soil of Florida; and from that moment that prince of
tools was never inactive for one moment in the hands of the excavators.
The gangs relieved each other every three hours.
On the 4th of November fifty workmen commenced digging, in the very
centre of the enclosed space on the summit of Stones Hill, a circular
hole sixty feet in diameter. The pickaxe first struck upon a kind of
black earth, six inches in thickness, which was speedily disposed of.
To this earth succeeded two feet of fine sand, which was carefully laid
aside as being valuable for serving for the casting of the inner mould.
After the sand appeared some compact white clay, resembling the chalk
of Great Britain, which extended down to a depth of four feet. Then the
iron of the picks struck upon the hard bed of the soil; a kind of rock
formed of petrified shells, very dry, very solid, and which the picks
could with difficulty penetrate. At this point the excavation exhibited
a depth of six feet and a half and the work of the masonry was begun.
At the bottom of this excavation they constructed a wheel of oak, a kind
of circle strongly bolted together, and of immense strength. The centre
of this wooden disc was hollowed out to a diameter equal to the exterior
diameter of the Columbiad. Upon this wheel rested the first layers of
the masonry, the stones of which were bound together by hydraulic cement,
with irresistible tenacity. The workmen, after laying the stones from
the circumference to the centre, were thus enclosed within a kind of
well twenty-one feet in diameter. When this work was accomplished, the
miners resumed their picks and cut away the rock from underneath the
_wheel_ itself, taking care to support it as they advanced upon blocks
of great thickness. At every two feet which the hole gained in depth they
successively withdrew the blocks. The _wheel_ then sank little by little,
and with it the massive ring of masonry, on the upper bed of which the
masons laboured incessantly, always reserving some vent holes to permit
the escape of gas during the operation of casting.
This kind of work required on the part of the workmen extreme nicety and
minute attention. More than one, in digging underneath the wheel, was
dangerously injured by the splinters of stone. But their ardour never
relaxed, night or day. By day they worked under the rays of the scorching
sun; by night, under the gleam of the electric light. The sounds of
the picks against the rock, the bursting of mines, the grinding of the
machines, the wreaths of smoke scattered through the air, traced around
Stones Hill a circle of terror which the herds of buffaloes and the war
parties of the Seminoles never ventured to pass. Nevertheless, the works
advanced regularly, as the steam-cranes actively removed the rubbish.
Of unexpected obstacles there was little account; and with regard to
foreseen difficulties, they were speedily disposed of.
Illustration: THE WORK PROGRESSED REGULARLY.
At the expiration of the first month the well had attained the depth
assigned for that lapse of time, viz. 112 feet. This depth was doubled
in December, and trebled in January.
During the month of February the workmen had to contend with a sheet of
water which made its way right across the outer soil. It became necessary
to employ very powerful pumps and compressed engines to drain it off,
so as to close up the orifice from whence it issued; just as one stops
a leak on board ship. They at last succeeded in getting the upper hand
of these untoward streams; only, in consequence of the loosening of the
soil, the wheel partly gave way, and a slight partial settlement ensued.
This accident cost the life of several workmen.
No fresh occurrence thenceforward arrested the progress of the operation;
and on the 10th of June, twenty days before the expiration of the period
fixed by Barbicane, the well, lined throughout with its facing of stone,
had attained the depth of 900 feet. At the bottom the masonry rested upon
a massive block measuring thirty feet in thickness, whilst on the upper
portion it was level with the surrounding soil.
President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly congratulated
their engineer Murchison: the cyclopean work had been accomplished with
extraordinary rapidity.
During these eight months Barbicane never quitted Stones Hill for a
single instant. Keeping ever close by the work of excavation, he busied
himself incessantly with the welfare and health of his workpeople, and
was singularly fortunate in warding off the epidemics common to large
communities of men, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe which
are exposed to the influences of tropical climates.
Many workmen, it is true, paid with their lives for the rashness inherent
in these dangerous labours; but these mishaps are impossible to be
avoided, and they are classed amongst details with which the Americans
trouble themselves but little. They have in fact more regard for human
nature in general than for the individual in particular.
Nevertheless, Barbicane professed opposite principles to these, and
put them in force at every opportunity. So, thanks to his care, his
intelligence, his useful intervention in all difficulties, his prodigious
and humane sagacity, the average of accidents did not exceed that of
transatlantic countries, noted for their excessive precautions, France,
for instance, among others, where they reckon about one accident for
every two hundred thousand francs of work.