Read Online From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon by Jules Verne - Free Book Online Page B

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.
    Most people are aware of the curious struggle which arose during
the Federal war between the guns and armor 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 armor-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 immortality upon which rests the whole art
of war.
    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 armor-plate would in the end have to give way to the shot;
nevertheless, there were competent judges who had their doubts
on the point.
    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 afterward substituted for conical shot simple
600-pound shells, at very moderate velocity, the captain was
obliged to give in. In fact, these projectiles knocked his best
metal plate to shivers.
    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 armor-plate of wrought steel. It was a
masterpiece of its kind, and bid defiance to all the projectiles
of 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.
    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.
    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 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