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Updated: June 4, 2025
"And the weight of a wire 86,000 leagues long," answered Nicholl, "does that go for nothing?" "Yes, for nothing! We should have trebled the charge of the Columbiad! We could have made it four times five times greater!" cried Michel, whose voice became more and more violent. "There is a slight objection to make to your project," answered Barbicane.
It is hardly necessary to say that this was only to be done at the last moment. On the 28th of November the 800 cartridges were placed at the bottom of the Columbiad. That part of the operation had succeeded. But what worry, anxiety, and struggles President Barbicane had to undergo!
It went at the speed of eighty leagues an hour. But what was that speed compared to the one with which the three heroes had left the Columbiad? Thus they went from one town to another, finding the population in crowds upon their passage saluting them with the same acclamations, and showering upon them the same "bravoes."
"Yes," answered Nicholl. "Twenty-three minutes and six seconds to eleven." "I hear, captain. Well, before another quarter of an hour is over you will have to make over another nine thousand dollars to the president, four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and five thousand because the bullet will rise higher than six miles into the air."
"That is what you call answering," cried Nicholl. "I approve of Michel's words, and add that the question has no actual interest. We will think about that later on, when we want to return. Though the Columbiad will not be there, the projectile will." "Much good that will be, a bullet without a gun!" "A gun can be made, and so can powder!
Look, we have at our disposition all the southern part of Texas and Florida." This incident had no consequences; still it was not without regret that J.T. Maston allowed himself to be convinced. It was, therefore, decided that the Columbiad should be cast either on the soil of Texas or on that of Florida.
But there is another view of the case possible, which might annul the bet." "What other view?" asked Barbican, quickly. "Suppose," said the Captain, very drily, "that the powder had not caught, and that we were still lying quietly at the bottom of the Columbiad!" "By Jove!" laughed Ardan, "there's an idea truly worthy of my own nondescript brain!
I return then to my large-grained powder, which removes those difficulties. In his Columbiad charges Rodman employed a powder as large as chestnuts, made of willow charcoal, simply dried in cast- iron pans.
The words were startling enough, and the sudden dropping of a dozen bombshells among the unfinished dwellings of New Boston could not have created greater consternation, emphasized as they were by the towering form of the hunter and steed, who looked as if they had been fired from the throat of some immense Columbiad, and had not as yet recovered from their bewilderment.
"That is all very well, my friends," said the president; "but one insoluble question still remains why did we not hear the detonation of the Columbiad?" For want of an answer the conversation stopped, and Barbicane, still reflecting, occupied himself with lowering the covering of the second lateral light-port.
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