From the Earth to the Moon | Page 3

Fete of the Casting XVI. The Columbiad XVII. A
Telegraphic Dispatch XVIII. The Passenger of the Atlanta XIX. A
Monster Meeting XX. Attack and Riposte XXI. How A Frenchman
Manages An Affair XXII. The New Citizen of the United States XXIII.
The Projectile-Vehicle XXIV. The Telescope of the Rocky Mountains
XXV. Final Details XXVI. Fire! XXVII. Foul Weather XXVIII. A
New Star
A TRIP AROUND IT
Preliminary Chapter-- Recapitulating the First Part of This Work, and
Serving as a Preface to the Second
I. From Twenty Minutes Past Ten to Forty-Seven Minutes Past Ten P.
M. II. The First Half Hour III. Their Place of Shelter IV. A Little
Algebra V. The Cold of Space VI. Question and Answer VII. A

Moment of Intoxication VIII. At Seventy-Eight Thousand Five
Hundred and Fourteen Leagues IX. The Consequences of A Deviation
X. The Observers of the Moon XI. Fancy and Reality XII. Orographic
Details XIII. Lunar Landscapes XIV. The Night of Three Hundred and
Fifty-Four Hours and A Half XV. Hyperbola or Parabola XVI. The
Southern Hemisphere XVII. Tycho XVIII. Grave Questions XIX. A
Struggle Against the Impossible XX. The Soundings of the
Susquehanna XXI. J. T. Maston Recalled XXII. Recovered From the
Sea XXIII. The End

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
CHAPTER I
THE GUN CLUB
During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was
established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland. It is well
known with what energy the taste for military matters became
developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers, and
mechanics. Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become
extemporized captains, colonels, and generals, without having ever
passed the School of Instruction at West Point; nevertheless; they
quickly rivaled their compeers of the old continent, and, like them,
carried off victories by dint of lavish expenditure in ammunition,
money, and men.
But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the
Europeans was in the science of gunnery. Not, indeed, that their
weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs, but that they
exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and consequently attained hitherto
unheard-of ranges. In point of grazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading,
or point-blank firing, the English, French, and Prussians have nothing
to learn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are mere
pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the American
artillery.

This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the first mechanicians in
the world, are engineers-- just as the Italians are musicians and the
Germans metaphysicians-- by right of birth. Nothing is more natural,
therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to
the science of gunnery. Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and
Rodman. The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled
to bow before their transatlantic rivals.
Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second
American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two
secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is
ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is
fully constituted. So things were managed in Baltimore. The inventor
of a new cannon associated himself with the caster and the borer. Thus
was formed the nucleus of the "Gun Club." In a single month after its
formation it numbered 1,833 effective members and 30,565
corresponding members.
One condition was imposed as a sine qua non upon every candidate for
admission into the association, and that was the condition of having
designed, or (more or less) perfected a cannon; or, in default of a
cannon, at least a firearm of some description. It may, however, be
mentioned that mere inventors of revolvers, fire-shooting carbines, and
similar small arms, met with little consideration. Artillerists always
commanded the chief place of favor.
The estimation in which these gentlemen were held, according to one
of the most scientific exponents of the Gun Club, was "proportional to
the masses of their guns, and in the direct ratio of the square of the
distances attained by their projectiles."
The Gun Club once founded, it is easy to conceive the result of the
inventive genius of the Americans. Their military weapons attained
colossal proportions, and their projectiles, exceeding the prescribed
limits, unfortunately occasionally cut in two some unoffending
pedestrians. These inventions, in fact, left far in the rear the timid
instruments of European artillery.

It is but fair to add that these Yankees, brave as they have ever proved
themselves to be, did not confine themselves to theories and formulae,
but that they paid heavily, in propria persona, for their inventions.
Among them were to be counted officers of all ranks, from lieutenants
to generals; military men of every age, from those who were just
making their debut in the profession of arms up to those