The Moon-Voyage

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COLUMBI­AD.

Had the op­er­ation of cast­ing suc­ceed­ed? Peo­ple were re­duced to mere con­jec­ture. How­ev­er, there was ev­ery rea­son to be­lieve in its suc­cess, as the mould had ab­sorbed the en­tire mass of met­al liq­ue­fied in the fur­naces. Still it was nec­es­sar­ily a long time im­pos­si­ble to be cer­tain.

In fact, when Ma­jor Rod­man cast his can­non of 160,000 lbs., it took no less than a fort­night to cool. How long, there­fore, would the mon­strous Columbi­ad, crowned with its clouds of vapour, and guard­ed by its in­tense heat, be kept from the eyes of its ad­mir­ers? It was dif­fi­cult to es­ti­mate.

The im­pa­tience of the mem­bers of the Gun Club was put to a rude test dur­ing this lapse of time. But it could not be helped. J.T. Mas­ton was near­ly roast­ed through his anx­iety. A fort­night af­ter the cast­ing an im­mense col­umn of smoke was still soar­ing to­wards the sky, and the ground burnt the soles of the feet with­in a ra­dius of 200 feet round the sum­mit of Stony Hill.

The days went by; weeks fol­lowed them. There were no means of cool­ing the im­mense cylin­der. It was im­pos­si­ble to ap­proach it. The mem­bers of the Gun Club were obliged to wait with what pa­tience they could muster.

“Here we are at the 10th of Au­gust,” said J.T. Mas­ton one morn­ing. “It wants hard­ly four months to the 1st of De­cem­ber! There still re­mains the in­te­ri­or mould to be tak­en out, and the Columbi­ad to be load­ed! We nev­er shall be ready! One can­not even ap­proach the can­non! Will it nev­er get cool? That would be a cru­el de­cep­tion!”

They tried to calm the im­pa­tient sec­re­tary with­out suc­ceed­ing. Bar­bi­cane said noth­ing, but his si­lence cov­ered se­ri­ous ir­ri­ta­tion. To see him­self stopped by an ob­sta­cle that time alone could re­move--time, an en­emy to be feared un­der the cir­cum­stances--and to be in the pow­er of an en­emy was hard for men of war.

How­ev­er, dai­ly ob­ser­va­tions showed a cer­tain change in the state of the ground. To­wards the 15th of Au­gust the vapour thrown off had no­tably di­min­ished in in­ten­si­ty and thick­ness. A few days af­ter the earth on­ly ex­haled a slight puff of smoke, the last breath of the mon­ster shut up in its stone tomb. By de­grees the vi­bra­tions of the ground ceased, and the cir­cle of heat con­tract­ed; the most im­pa­tient of the spec­ta­tors ap­proached; one day they gained ten feet, the next twen­ty, and on the 22nd of Au­gust Bar­bi­cane, his col­leagues, and the en­gi­neer could take their place on the cast-​iron sur­face which cov­ered the sum­mit of Stony Hill, cer­tain­ly a very healthy spot, where it was not yet al­lowed to have cold feet.

“At last!” cried the pres­ident of the Gun Club with an im­mense sigh of sat­is­fac­tion.

The works were re­sumed the same day. The ex­trac­tion of the in­te­ri­or mould was im­me­di­ate­ly pro­ceed­ed with in or­der to clear out the bore; pick­ax­es, spades, and bor­ing-​tools were set to work with­out in­ter­mis­sion; the clay and sand had be­come ex­ceed­ing­ly hard un­der the ac­tion of the heat; but by the help of ma­chines they cleared away the mix­ture still burn­ing at its con­tact with the iron; the rub­bish was rapid­ly cart­ed away on the rail­way, and the work was done with such spir­it, Bar­bi­cane's in­ter­ven­tion was so ur­gent, and his ar­gu­ments, pre­sent­ed un­der the form of dol­lars, car­ried so much con­vic­tion, that on the 3rd of Septem­ber all trace of the mould had dis­ap­peared.

The op­er­ation of bor­ing was im­me­di­ate­ly be­gun; the bor­ing-​ma­chines were set up with­out de­lay, and a few weeks lat­er the in­te­ri­or sur­face of the im­mense tube was per­fect­ly cylin­dri­cal, and the bore had ac­quired a high pol­ish.

At last, on the 22nd of Septem­ber, less than a year af­ter the Bar­bi­cane com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the enor­mous weapon, raised by means of del­icate in­stru­ments, and quite ver­ti­cal, was ready for use. There was noth­ing but the moon to wait for, but they were sure she would not fail.

J.T. Mas­ton's joy knew no bounds, and he near­ly had a fright­ful fall whilst look­ing down the tube of 900 feet. With­out Colonel Bloms­ber­ry's right arm, which he had hap­pi­ly pre­served, the sec­re­tary of the Gun Club, like a mod­ern Erosta­tus, would have found a grave in the depths of the Columbi­ad.

The can­non was then fin­ished; there was no longer any pos­si­ble doubt as to its per­fect ex­ecu­tion; so on the 6th of Oc­to­ber Cap­tain Nicholl cleared off his debt to Pres­ident Bar­bi­cane, who in­scribed in his re­ceipt-​col­umn a sum of 2,000 dol­lars. It may be be­lieved that the cap­tain's anger reached its high­est pitch, and cost him an ill­ness. Still there were yet three bets of 3,000, 4,000, and 5,000 dol­lars, and if he on­ly gained 2,000, his bar­gain would not be a bad one, though not ex­cel­lent. But mon­ey did not en­ter in­to his cal­cu­la­tions, and the suc­cess ob­tained by his ri­val in the cast­ing of a can­non against which iron plates six­ty feet thick would not have re­sist­ed was a ter­ri­ble blow to him.

Since the 23rd of Septem­ber the in­clo­sure on Stony Hill had been quite open to the pub­lic, and the con­course of vis­itors will be read­ily imag­ined.

In fact, in­nu­mer­able peo­ple from all points of the Unit­ed States flocked to Flori­da. The town of Tam­pa was prodi­gious­ly in­creased dur­ing that year, con­se­crat­ed en­tire­ly to the works of the Gun Club; it then com­prised a pop­ula­tion of 150,000 souls. Af­ter hav­ing sur­round­ed Fort Brooke in a net­work of streets it was now be­ing length­ened out on that tongue of land which sep­arat­ed the two har­bours of Es­pir­itu-​San­to Bay; new quar­ters, new squares, and a whole for­est of hous­es had grown up in these for­mer­ly-​de­sert­ed re­gions un­der the heat of the Amer­ican sun. Com­pa­nies were formed for the erec­tion of church­es, schools, pri­vate dwellings, and in less than a year the size of the town was in­creased ten­fold.

It is well known that Yan­kees are born busi­ness men; ev­ery­where that des­tiny takes them, from the glacial to the tor­rid zone, their in­stinct for busi­ness is use­ful­ly ex­er­cised. That is why sim­ple vis­itors to Flori­da for the sole pur­pose of fol­low­ing the op­er­ations of the Gun Club al­lowed them­selves to be in­volved in com­mer­cial op­er­ations as soon as they were in­stalled in Tam­pa Town. The ves­sels freight­ed for the trans­port of the met­al and the work­men had giv­en un­par­al­leled ac­tiv­ity to the port. Soon oth­er ves­sels of ev­ery form and ton­nage, freight­ed with pro­vi­sions and mer­chan­dise, ploughed the bay and the two har­bours; vast of­fices of ship­bro­kers and mer­chants were es­tab­lished in the town, and the _Ship­ping Gazette_ each day pub­lished fresh ar­rivals in the port of Tam­pa.

Whilst roads were mul­ti­plied round the town, in con­se­quence of the prodi­gious in­crease in its pop­ula­tion and com­merce, it was joined by rail­way to the South­ern States of the Union. One line of rails con­nect­ed La Mo­bile to Pen­saco­la, the great south­ern mar­itime ar­se­nal; thence from that im­por­tant point it ran to Tal­la­has­see. There al­ready ex­ist­ed there a short line, twen­ty-​one miles long, to Saint Marks on the seashore. It was this loop-​line that was pro­longed as far as Tam­pa Town, awak­en­ing in its pas­sage the dead or sleep­ing por­tions of Cen­tral Flori­da. Thus Tam­pa, thanks to these mar­vels of in­dus­try due to the idea born one line day in the brain of one man, could take as its right the airs of a large town. They sur­named it “Moon-​City,” and the cap­ital of Flori­da suf­fered an eclipse vis­ible from all points of the globe.

Ev­ery one will now un­der­stand why the ri­val­ry was so great be­tween Texas and Flori­da, and the ir­ri­ta­tion of the Tex­icans when they saw their pre­ten­sions set aside by the Gun Club. In their long-​sight­ed sagac­ity they had fore­seen what a coun­try might gain from the ex­per­iment at­tempt­ed by Bar­bi­cane, and the wealth that would ac­com­pa­ny such a can­non-​shot. Texas lost a vast cen­tre of com­merce, rail­ways, and a con­sid­er­able in­crease of pop­ula­tion. All these ad­van­tages had been giv­en to that mis­er­able Florid­ian penin­su­la, thrown like a pier be­tween the waves of the Gulf and those of the At­lantic Ocean. Bar­bi­cane, there­fore, di­vid­ed with Gen­er­al San­ta-​An­na the Tex­an an­tipa­thy.

How­ev­er, though giv­en up to its com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al fury, the new pop­ula­tion of Tam­pa Town took care not to for­get the in­ter­est­ing op­er­ations of the Gun Club. On the con­trary, the least de­tails of the en­ter­prise, ev­ery blow of the pick­axe, in­ter­est­ed them. There was an in­ces­sant flow of peo­ple to and from Tam­pa Town to Stony Hill--a per­fect pro­ces­sion, or, bet­ter still, a pil­grim­age.

It was al­ready easy to fore­see that the day of the ex­per­iment the con­course of spec­ta­tors would be count­ed by mil­lions, for they came al­ready from all points of the earth to the nar­row penin­su­la. Eu­rope was em­igrat­ing to Amer­ica.

But un­til then, it must be ac­knowl­edged, the cu­rios­ity of the nu­mer­ous ar­rivals had on­ly been mod­er­ate­ly sat­is­fied. Many count­ed up­on see­ing the cast­ing who on­ly saw the smoke from it. This was not much for hun­gry eyes, but Bar­bi­cane would al­low no one to see that op­er­ation. There­upon en­sued grum­bling, dis­con­tent, and mur­murs; they blamed the pres­ident for what they con­sid­ered dic­ta­to­ri­al con­duct. His act was stig­ma­tised as “un-​Amer­ican.” There was near­ly a ri­ot round Stony Hill, but Bar­bi­cane was not to be moved. When, how­ev­er, the Columbi­ad was quite fin­ished, this state of closed doors could no longer be kept up; be­sides, it would have been in bad taste, and even im­pru­dent, to of­fend pub­lic opin­ion. Bar­bi­cane, there­fore, opened the in­clo­sure to all com­ers; but, in ac­cor­dance with his prac­ti­cal char­ac­ter, he de­ter­mined to coin mon­ey out of the pub­lic cu­rios­ity.

It was, in­deed, some­thing to even be al­lowed to see this im­mense Columbi­ad, but to de­scend in­to its depths seemed to the Amer­icans the _ne plus ul­tra_ of earth­ly fe­lic­ity. In con­se­quence there was not one vis­itor who was not will­ing to give him­self the plea­sure of vis­it­ing the in­te­ri­or of this metal­lic abyss. Bas­kets hung from steam-​cranes al­lowed them to sat­is­fy their cu­rios­ity. It be­came a per­fect ma­nia. Wom­en, chil­dren, and old men all made it their busi­ness to pen­etrate the mys­ter­ies of the colos­sal gun. The price for the de­scent was fixed at five dol­lars a head, and, notwith­stand­ing this high charge, dur­ing the two months that pre­ced­ed the ex­per­iment, the in­flux of vis­itors al­lowed the Gun Club to pock­et near­ly 500,000 dol­lars!

It need hard­ly be said that the first vis­itors to the Columbi­ad were the mem­bers of the Gun Club. This priv­ilege was just­ly ac­cord­ed to that il­lus­tri­ous body. The cer­emo­ny of re­cep­tion took place on the 25th of Septem­ber. A bas­ket of hon­our took down the pres­ident, J.T. Mas­ton, Ma­jor El­phin­stone, Gen­er­al Mor­gan, Colonel Bloms­ber­ry, and oth­er mem­bers of the Gun Club, ten in all. How hot they were at the bot­tom of that long met­al tube! They were near­ly sti­fled, but how de­light­ful--how exquisite! A ta­ble had been laid for ten on the mas­sive stone which formed the bot­tom of the Columbi­ad, and was light­ed by a jet of elec­tric light as bright as day it­self. Nu­mer­ous exquisite dish­es, that seemed to de­scend from heav­en, were suc­ces­sive­ly placed be­fore the guests, and the rich­est wines of France flowed pro­fuse­ly dur­ing this splen­did repast, giv­en 900 feet be­low the sur­face of the earth!

The fes­ti­val was a gay, not to say a noisy one. Toasts were giv­en and replied to. They drank to the earth and her satel­lite, to the Gun Club, the Union, the Moon, Di­ana, Phoebe, Se­lene, “the peace­ful couri­er of the night.” All the hur­rahs, car­ried up by the sonorous waves of the im­mense acous­tic tube, reached its mouth with a noise of thun­der; then the mul­ti­tude round Stony Hill hearti­ly unit­ed their shouts to those of the ten rev­ellers hid­den from sight in the depths of the gi­gan­tic Columbi­ad.

J.T. Mas­ton could con­tain him­self no longer. Whether he shout­ed or ate, ges­tic­ulat­ed or talked most would be dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine. Any way he would not have giv­en up his place for an em­pire, “not even if the can­non--load­ed, primed, and fired at that very mo­ment--were to blow him in pieces in­to the plan­etary uni­verse.”