CHAPTER X.
ONE ENEMY _v._ TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.
The American public took a lively interest in the smallest details ofthe enterprise of the Gun Club. It followed day by day the discussions ofthe committee. The most simple preparation for the great experiment, thequestions of figures which it involved, the mechanical difficulties tobe resolved--in one word, the entire plan of work--roused the popularexcitement to the highest pitch.
The purely scientific attraction was suddenly intensified by the followingincident:--
We have seen what legions of admirers and friends Barbicane's projecthad rallied round its author. There was, however, one single individualalone in all the States of the Union who protested against the attemptof the Gun Club. He attacked it furiously on every opportunity, and humannature is such that Barbicane felt more keenly the opposition of that oneman than he did the applause of all the others. He was well aware of themotive of this antipathy, the origin of this solitary enmity, the causeof its personality and old standing, and in what rivalry of self-love ithad 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 wouldcertainly have been attended with serious consequences. This rival was aman of science, like Barbicane himself, of a fiery, daring, and violentdisposition; a pure Yankee. His name was Captain Nicholl; he lived atPhiladelphia.
Most people are aware of the curious struggle which arose during theFederal war between the guns and the armour of iron-plated ships. Theresult 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" dischargedenormous projectiles themselves, after having been armour-clad againstthe projectiles of others. In fact they did to others that which theywould not they should do to them--that grand principle of immoralityupon which rests the whole art of war.
Now if Barbicane was a great founder of shot, Nicholl was a great forgerof plates; the one cast night and day at Baltimore, the other forged dayand night at Philadelphia. As soon as ever Barbicane invented a new shot,Nicholl invented a new plate, each followed a current of ideas essentiallyopposed to the other. Happily for these citizens, so useful to theircountry, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles separated them from oneanother, and they had never yet met. Which of these two inventors hadthe advantage over the other it was difficult to decide from the resultsobtained. By last accounts, however, it would seem that the armour-platewould in the end have to give way to the shot; nevertheless, there werecompetent judges who had their doubts on the point.
At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles of Barbicane stucklike so many pins in the Nicholl plates. On that day the Philadelphiairon-forger then believed himself victorious, and could not evincecontempt enough for his rival; but when the other afterwards substitutedfor conical shot simple 600 lb. shells, at very moderate velocity, thecaptain was obliged to give in. In fact, these projectiles knocked hisbest 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 completeda 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 itconveyed to the Polygon at Washington, challenging the President of theGun Club to break it. Barbicane, peace having been declared, declined totry the experiment.
Illustration: NICHOLL PUBLISHED A NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE NEWSPAPERS.
Nicholl, now furious, offered to expose his plate to the shock of anyshot, solid, hollow, round, or conical. Refused by the president, whodid not choose to compromise his last success.
Nicholl, disgusted by this obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicane by offeringhim every chance. He proposed to fix the plate within two hundred yardsof the gun. Barbicane still obstinate in refusal. A hundred yards? Noteven _seventy-five!_
"At fifty then!" roared the captain through the newspapers. "At twenty-fiveyards!! and I'll stand behind!!!"
Barbicane returned for answer that, even if Captain Nicholl would be sogood as to stand in front, he would not fire any more.
Nicholl could not contain himself at this reply; threw out hints ofcowardice; that a man who refused to fire a cannon-shot was pretty nearbeing afraid of it; that artillerists who fight at six miles' distanceare substituting mathematical formulas for individual courage.
To these insinuations Barbicane returned no answer; perhaps he neverheard of them, so absorbed was he in the calculations for his greatenterprise.
When his famous communication was made to the Gun Club, the captain'swrath passed all bounds; with his intense jealousy was mingled a feelingof absolute impotence. How was he to invent anything to beat this 900-feetColumbiad? What armour-plate could ever resist a projectile of 30,000lbs. weight? Overwhelmed at first under this violent shock, he by and byrecovered himself, and resolved to crush the proposal by the weight ofhis arguments.
He then violently attacked the labours of the Gun Club, published anumber of letters in the newspapers, endeavoured to prove Barbicaneignorant of the first principles of gunnery. He maintained that it wasabsolutely impossible to impress upon any body whatever a velocity of12,000 yards per second; that even with such a velocity a projectile ofsuch a weight could not transcend the limits of the earth's atmosphere.Further still, even regarding the velocity to be acquired, and grantingit to be sufficient, the shell could not resist the pressure of the gasdeveloped by the ignition of 1,600,000 lbs. of powder; and supposingit to resist that pressure, it would be the less able to support thattemperature; it would melt on quitting the Columbiad, and fall back ina 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 touchingupon its uselessness in all points of view, he regarded the experimentas fraught with extreme danger, both to the citizens, who might sanctionby their presence so reprehensible a spectacle, and also to the townsin the neighbourhood of this deplorable cannon. He also observed thatif the projectile did not succeed in reaching its destination (a resultabsolutely impossible), it must inevitably fall back upon the earth,and that the shock of such a mass, multiplied by the square of itsvelocity, would seriously endanger every point of the globe. Under thecircumstances, therefore, and without interfering with the rights of freecitizens, it was a case for the intervention of Government, which oughtnot to endanger the safety of all for the pleasure of one individual.
Spite of all his arguments, however, Captain Nicholl remained alone inhis opinion. Nobody listened to him, and he did not succeed in alienatinga single admirer from the President of the Gun Club. The latter did noteven take the pains to refute the arguments of his rival.
Nicholl, driven into his last entrenchments, and not able to fightpersonally in the cause, resolved to fight with money. He published,therefore, in the _Richmond Inquirer_ a series of wagers, conceived inthese terms, and on an increasing scale:--
No. 1 (1000 dols.).--That the necessary funds for the experiment of theGun Club will not be forthcoming.
No. 2 (2000 dols.).--That the operation of casting a cannon of 900 feetis impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed.
No. 3 (3000 dols.).--That it is impossible to load the Columbiad, andthat the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under the pressure of theprojectile.
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 sixmiles, and that it will fall back again a few seconds after its discharge.
It was an important sum, therefore, which the captain risked in hisinvincible obstinacy. He had no less than 15,000 dollars at stake.
Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of Mayhe received a sealed packet containing the following superbly laconicr
eply:--
"Baltimore, _Oct._ 19.
"Done.
"Barbicane."