summit of Long’s Peak, in the territory of Missouri.
Neither pen nor language can describe the difficulties of all
kinds which the American engineers had to surmount, of the
prodigies of daring and skill which they accomplished. They had
to raise enormous stones, massive pieces of wrought iron, heavy
corner-clamps and huge portions of cylinder, with an
object-glass weighing nearly 30,000 pounds, above the line of
perpetual snow for more than 10,000 feet in height, after
crossing desert prairies, impenetrable forests, fearful rapids,
far from all centers of population, and in the midst of savage
regions, in which every detail of life becomes an almost
insoluble problem. And yet, notwithstanding these innumerable
obstacles, American genius triumphed. In less than a year after
the commencement of the works, toward the close of September,
the gigantic reflector rose into the air to a height of 280 feet.
It was raised by means of an enormous iron crane; an ingenious
mechanism allowed it to be easily worked toward all the points
of the heavens, and to follow the stars from the one horizon to
the other during their journey through the heavens.
It had cost $400,000. The first time it was directed toward the
moon the observers evinced both curiosity and anxiety. What were
they about to discover in the field of this telescope which
magnified objects 48,000 times? Would they perceive peoples,
herds of lunar animals, towns, lakes, seas? No! there was
nothing which science had not already discovered! and on all the
points of its disc the volcanic nature of the moon became
determinable with the utmost precision.
But the telescope of the Rocky Mountains, before doing its duty
to the Gun Club, rendered immense services to astronomy. Thanks to
its penetrative power, the depths of the heavens were sounded to
the utmost extent; the apparent diameter of a great number of stars
was accurately measured; and Mr. Clark, of the Cambridge staff,
resolved the Crab nebula in Taurus, which the reflector of Lord
Rosse had never been able to decompose.
CHAPTER XXV
FINAL DETAILS
It was the 22nd of November; the departure was to take place in
ten days. One operation alone remained to be accomplished to
bring all to a happy termination; an operation delicate and
perilous, requiring infinite precautions, and against the
success of which Captain Nicholl had laid his third bet. It was,
in fact, nothing less than the loading of the Columbiad, and the
introduction into it of 400,000 pounds of gun-cotton. Nicholl had
thought, not perhaps without reason, that the handling of such
formidable quantities of pyroxyle would, in all probability,
involve a grave catastrophe; and at any rate, that this immense
mass of eminently inflammable matter would inevitably ignite when
submitted to the pressure of the projectile.
There were indeed dangers accruing as before from the
carelessness of the Americans, but Barbicane had set his heart
on success, and took all possible precautions. In the first
place, he was very careful as to the transportation of the
gun-cotton to Stones Hill. He had it conveyed in small
quantities, carefully packed in sealed cases. These were
brought by rail from Tampa Town to the camp, and from thence
were taken to the Columbiad by barefooted workmen, who deposited
them in their places by means of cranes placed at the orifice of
the cannon. No steam-engine was permitted to work, and every
fire was extinguished within two miles of the works.
Even in November they feared to work by day, lest the sun’s rays
acting on the gun-cotton might lead to unhappy results. This led
to their working at night, by light produced in a vacuum by means
of Ruhmkorff’s apparatus, which threw an artificial brightness
into the depths of the Columbiad. There the cartridges were
arranged with the utmost regularity, connected by a metallic thread,
destined to communicate to them all simultaneously the electric
spark, by which means this mass of gun-cotton was eventually
to be ignited.
By the 28th of November eight hundred cartridges had been
placed in the bottom of the Columbiad. So far the operation had
been successful! But what confusion, what anxieties, what struggles
were undergone by President Barbicane! In vain had he refused