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 formulae 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 armor-plate
could ever resist a projectile of 30,000 pounds weight?
Overwhelmed at first under this violent shock, he by and by
recovered himself, and resolved to crush the proposal by weight
of his arguments.
He then violently attacked the labors of the Gun Club, published
a number of letters in the newspapers, endeavored 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 pounds of powder; and supposing it to
resist that pressure, it would be 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 neighborhood 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.
In 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 ($1,000).– That the necessary funds for the experiment
of the Gun Club will not be forthcoming.
No. 2 ($2,000).– That the operation of casting a cannon of 900
feet 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 the
pressure 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 in
his invincible obstinacy. He had no less than $15,000 at stake.
Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of