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FROM EARTH TO THE MOON

FROM THE EARTH TO

THE MOON

by Jules Verne

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FROM 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

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.

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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FROM EARTH TO THE MOON

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

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FROM EARTH TO THE MOON

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

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FROM EARTH TO THE MOON

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 unoffending 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 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 value of mere theories?

Consequently, the clubrooms became deserted, the servants dozed

in the antechambers, the newspapers grew mouldy on the tables,

sounds of snoring came from dark corners, and the members of the

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