From the Earth to the Moon Page 01

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

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 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

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.