From the Earth to the Moon - The Original Classic Edition. Verne Jules

      FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

       by

       Jules Verne

       Table of Contents

       I. The Gun Club

       II. President Barbicane's Communication

       III. Effect of the President's Communication

       IV. Reply From the Observatory of Cambridge

       V. The Romance of the Moon

       VI. The Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States

       VII. The Hymn of the Cannon-Ball

       VIII. History of the Cannon

       IX. The Question of the Powders

       X. One Enemy V. Twenty-Five Millions of Friends

       XI. Florida and Texas

       XII. Urbi et Orbi

       XIII. Stones Hill

       XIV. Pickaxe and Trowel

       XV. The 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

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       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 unof-fending 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 who had grown old in the gun-carriage. Many had found their rest on the field of battle whose names figured in the "Book of Honor" of the Gun Club; and of those who made good their return the greater proportion bore the marks of their indisputable

       valor. Crutches, wooden legs, artificial arms, steel hooks, caoutchouc jaws, silver craniums, platinum noses, were all to be found in the collection; and it was calculated by the great statistician Pitcairn that throughout the Gun Club there was not quite one arm between four persons and two legs between six.

       Nevertheless, these valiant artillerists took no particular account of these little facts, and felt justly proud when the despatches of a

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       battle returned the number of victims at ten-fold the quantity of projectiles expended.

       One day, however-- sad and melancholy day!-- peace was signed between the survivors of the war; the thunder of the guns gradually ceased, the mortars were silent, the howitzers were muzzled for an indefinite period, the cannon, with muzzles depressed, were returned into the arsenal, the shot were repiled, all bloody reminiscences were effaced; the cotton-plants grew luxuriantly in the well-manured fields, all mourning garments were laid aside, together with grief; and the Gun Club was relegated to profound inactivity.

       Some few of the more advanced and inveterate theorists set themselves again to work upon calculations regarding the laws of projectiles. They reverted invariably to gigantic shells and howitzers of unparalleled caliber. Still in default of practical experience what was the