<h2 id="sigil_toc_id_21">CHAPTER X.</h2>
<h3 id="sigil_toc_id_22">ONE ENEMY <i>v.</i> TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.</h3>
<p>The American public took a lively interest in the smallest details
of the enterprise of the Gun Club. It followed day by day the
discussions of the committee. The most simple preparation for the
great experiment, the questions of figures which it involved, the
mechanical difficulties to be resolved—in one word, the entire plan
of work—roused the popular excitement to the highest pitch.</p>
<p>The purely scientific attraction was suddenly intensified by the
following incident:—</p>
<p>We have seen what legions of admirers and friends Barbicane's
project had rallied round its author. There was, however, one single
individual alone in all the States of the Union who protested against
the attempt of the Gun Club. He attacked it furiously on every
opportunity, and human nature is such that Barbicane felt more keenly
the opposition of that one man than he did the applause of all the
others. He was well aware of the motive of this antipathy, the origin
of this solitary enmity, the cause of its personality and old
standing, and in what rivalry of self-love it had its rise.</p>
<p>This persevering enemy the President of the Gun Club had never
seen. Fortunate that it was so, for a meeting between the two men
would certainly have been attended with serious consequences. This
rival was a man of science, like Barbicane himself, of a fiery,
daring, and violent disposition; a pure Yankee. His name was Captain
Nicholl; he lived at Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Most people are aware of the curious struggle which arose during
the Federal war between the guns and the armour of iron-plated ships.
The result was the entire reconstruction of the navy of both the
continents; as the one grew heavier, the other became thicker in
proportion. The "Merrimac," the "Monitor," the "Tennessee," the
"Weehawken" discharged enormous projectiles themselves, after having
been armour-clad against the projectiles of others. In fact they did
to others that which they would not they should do to them—that grand
principle of immorality upon which rests the whole art of war.</p>
<p>Now if Barbicane was a great founder of shot, Nicholl was a great
forger of plates; the one cast night and day at Baltimore, the other
forged day and night at Philadelphia. As soon as ever Barbicane
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 distance of from fifty to
sixty miles separated them from one another, and they had never yet
met. Which of these two inventors had the advantage over the other it
was difficult to decide from the results obtained. By last accounts,
however, it would seem that the armour-plate would in the end have to
give way to the shot; nevertheless, there were competent judges who
had their doubts on the point.</p>
<p>At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles of
Barbicane stuck like so many pins in the Nicholl plates. On that day
the Philadelphia iron-forger then believed himself victorious, and
could not evince contempt enough for his rival; but when the other
afterwards substituted for conical shot simple 600 lb. shells, at
very moderate velocity, the captain was obliged to give in. In fact,
these projectiles knocked his best metal plate to shivers.</p>
<p>Matters were at this stage, and victory seemed to rest with the
shot, when the war came to an end on the very day when Nicholl had
completed a new armour-plate of wrought steel. It was a masterpiece
of its kind, and bid defiance to all the projectiles in the world.
The captain had it conveyed to the Polygon at Washington, challenging
the President of the Gun Club to break it. Barbicane, peace having
been declared, declined to try the experiment.</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: NICHOLL PUBLISHED A NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE NEWSPAPERS." id="published" src="images/published.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">NICHOLL PUBLISHED A NUMBER OF LETTERS IN THE
NEWSPAPERS.</div>
<p>Nicholl, now furious, offered to expose his plate to the shock of
any shot, solid, hollow, round, or conical. Refused by the president,
who did not choose to compromise his last success.</p>
<p>Nicholl, disgusted by this obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicane by
offering him every chance. He proposed to fix the plate within two
hundred yards of the gun. Barbicane still obstinate in refusal. A
hundred yards? Not even <i>seventy-five!</i></p>
<p>"At fifty then!" roared the captain through the newspapers. "At
twenty-five yards!! and I'll stand behind!!!"</p>
<p>Barbicane returned for answer that, even if Captain Nicholl would
be so good as to stand in front, he would not fire any more.</p>
<p>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 formulas for individual
courage.</p>
<p>To these insinuations Barbicane returned no answer; perhaps he
never heard of them, so absorbed was he in the calculations for his
great enterprise.</p>
<p>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 armour-plate could
ever resist a projectile of 30,000 lbs. weight? Overwhelmed at first
under this violent shock, he by and by recovered himself, and
resolved to crush the proposal by the weight of his arguments.</p>
<p>He then violently attacked the labours of the Gun Club, published
a number of letters in the newspapers, endeavoured 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
lbs. of powder; and supposing it to resist that pressure, it would be
the 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.</p>
<p>Barbicane continued his work without regarding these attacks.</p>
<p>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 neighbourhood 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Richmond Inquirer</i> a series of wagers,
conceived in these terms, and on an increasing scale:—</p>
<p>No. 1 (1000 dols.).—That the necessary funds for the experiment of
the Gun Club will not be forthcoming.</p>
<p>No. 2 (2000 dols.).—That the operation of casting a cannon of 900
feet is impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed.</p>
<p>No. 3 (3000 dols.).—That it is impossible to load the Columbiad,
and that the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under the pressure
of the projectile.</p>
<p>No. 4 (4000 dols.).—That the Columbiad will burst at the first
fire.</p>
<p>No. 5 (5000 dols.).—That the shot will not travel farther than six
miles, and that it will fall back again a few seconds after its
discharge.</p>
<p>It was an important sum, therefore, which the captain risked in
his invincible obstinacy. He had no less than 15,000 dollars at
stake.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of
May he received a sealed packet containing the following superbly
laconic reply:—</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"<span class="smallcap">Baltimore</span>, <i>Oct.</i> 19.<br/>
"Done.<br/>
"<span class="smallcap">Barbicane</span>."</p>
</blockquote>
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