CHAPTER X
ONE ENEMY _v._ TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS
The American public took a lively interest in the smallestdetails of the enterprise of the Gun Club. It followed day byday the discussion of the committee. The most simplepreparations for the great experiment, the questions of figureswhich it involved, the mechanical difficulties to be resolved--in one word, the entire plan of work-- roused the popularexcitement to the highest pitch.
The purely scientific attraction was suddenly intensified by thefollowing incident:
We have seen what legions of admirers and friends Barbicane'sproject had rallied round its author. There was, however,one single individual alone in all the States of the Union whoprotested against the attempt of the Gun Club. He attacked itfuriously on every opportunity, and human nature is such thatBarbicane felt more keenly the opposition of that one man thanhe did the applause of all the others. He was well aware of themotive of this antipathy, the origin of this solitary enmity,the cause of its personality and old standing, and in whatrivalry 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 wouldcertainly have been attended with serious consequences. This rivalwas a man of science, like Barbicane himself, of a fiery, daring,and violent disposition; a pure Yankee. His name was CaptainNicholl; he lived at Philadelphia.
Most people are aware of the curious struggle which arose duringthe Federal war between the guns and armor of iron-plated ships.The result was the entire reconstruction of the navy of both thecontinents; as the one grew heavier, the other became thickerin proportion. The Merrimac, the Monitor, the Tennessee, theWeehawken discharged enormous projectiles themselves, afterhaving been armor-clad against the projectiles of others. In factthey did to others that which they would not they should do to them--that grand principle of immortality upon which rests the whole artof war.
Now if Barbicane was a great founder of shot, Nicholl was agreat forger of plates; the one cast night and day at Baltimore,the other forged day and night at Philadelphia. As soon as everBarbicane 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 distanceof from fifty to sixty miles separated them from one another, andthey had never yet met. Which of these two inventors had theadvantage over the other it was difficult to decide from theresults obtained. By last accounts, however, it would seem thatthe armor-plate would in the end have to give way to the shot;nevertheless, there were competent judges who had their doubtson the point.
At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles ofBarbicane stuck like so many pins in the Nicholl plates.On that day the Philadelphia iron-forger then believed himselfvictorious, and could not evince contempt enough for his rival;but when the other afterward substituted for conical shot simple600-pound shells, at very moderate velocity, the captain wasobliged to give in. In fact, these projectiles knocked his bestmetal plate to shivers.
Matters were at this stage, and victory seemed to rest with theshot, when the war came to an end on the very day when Nichollhad completed a new armor-plate of wrought steel. It was amasterpiece of its kind, and bid defiance to all the projectilesof the world. The captain had it conveyed to the Polygon atWashington, challenging the president of the Gun Club to break it.Barbicane, peace having been declared, declined to try the experiment.
Nicholl, now furious, offered to expose his plate to the shockof any shot, solid, hollow, round, or conical. Refused by thepresident, who did not choose to compromise his last success.
Nicholl, disgusted by this obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicaneby offering him every chance. He proposed to fix the platewithin two hundred yards of the gun. Barbicane still obstinatein 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 Nichollwould be so good as to stand in front, he would not fire any more.
Nicholl could not contain himself at this reply; threw out hintsof cowardice; that a man who refused to fire a cannon-shot waspretty near being afraid of it; that artillerists who fight atsix miles distance are substituting mathematical formulae forindividual courage.
To these insinuations Barbicane returned no answer; perhaps henever heard of them, so absorbed was he in the calculations forhis great enterprise.
When his famous communication was made to the Gun Club, thecaptain's wrath passed all bounds; with his intense jealousy wasmingled a feeling of absolute impotence. How was he to inventanything to beat this 900-feet Columbiad? What armor-platecould ever resist a projectile of 30,000 pounds weight?Overwhelmed at first under this violent shock, he by and byrecovered himself, and resolved to crush the proposal by weightof his arguments.
He then violently attacked the labors of the Gun Club, publisheda number of letters in the newspapers, endeavored to prove Barbicaneignorant of the first principles of gunnery. He maintained thatit was absolutely impossible to impress upon any body whatevera velocity of 12,000 yards per second; that even with such avelocity a projectile of such a weight could not transcend thelimits of the earth's atmosphere. Further still, even regardingthe velocity to be acquired, and granting it to be sufficient,the shell could not resist the pressure of the gas developed bythe ignition of 1,600,000 pounds of powder; and supposing it toresist that pressure, it would be less able to support thattemperature; it would melt on quitting the Columbiad, and fallback 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. Withouttouching upon its uselessness in all points of view, he regardedthe experiment as fraught with extreme danger, both to thecitizens, who might sanction by their presence so reprehensiblea spectacle, and also to the towns in the neighborhood of thisdeplorable cannon. He also observed that if the projectile didnot succeed in reaching its destination (a result absolutelyimpossible), it must inevitably fall back upon the earth, andthat the shock of such a mass, multiplied by the square of itsvelocity, would seriously endanger every point of the globe.Under the circumstances, therefore, and without interfering withthe rights of free citizens, it was a case for the interventionof Government, which ought not to endanger the safety of all forthe pleasure of one individual.
In spite of all his arguments, however, Captain Nichollremained alone in his opinion. Nobody listened to him, and hedid not succeed in alienating a single admirer from thepresident of the Gun Club. The latter did not even take thepains to refute the arguments of his rival.
Nicholl, driven into his last entrenchments, and not able tofight personally in the cause, resolved to fight with money.He published, therefore, in the Richmond _Inquirer_ a series ofwagers, conceived in these terms, and on an increasing scale:
No. 1 ($1,000).-- That the necessary funds for the experimentof the Gun Club will not be forthcoming.
No. 2 ($2,000).-- That the operation of casting a cannon of 900feet is impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed.
No. 3 ($3,000).-- That is it impossible to load the Columbiad,and that the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under thepressure of the projectile.
No. 4 ($4,000).-- That the Columbiad will burst at the first fire.
No. 5 ($5,000).-- 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 inhis invincible obstinacy. He had no less than $15,000 at stake.
Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th ofMay he received a sealed packet containing the followingsuperbly laconic reply: "BALTIMORE, October 19. "Done. "BARBICANE.
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