From the Earth to the moon; and, round the moon

[Illustration]




From the Earth to the Moon

by Jules Verne


Contents: From the Earth to the Moon

 CHAPTER I. The Gun Club
 CHAPTER II. President Barbicane’s Communication
 CHAPTER III. Effect of the President’s Communication
 CHAPTER IV. Reply From the Observatory of Cambridge
 CHAPTER V. The Romance of the Moon
 CHAPTER VI. The Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States
 CHAPTER VII. The Hymn of the Cannon-Ball
 CHAPTER VIII. History of the Cannon
 CHAPTER IX. The Question of the Powders
 CHAPTER X. One Enemy _v._ Twenty-Five Millions of Friends
 CHAPTER XI. Florida and Texas
 CHAPTER XII. Urbi et Orbi
 CHAPTER XIII. Stones Hill
 CHAPTER XIV. Pickaxe and Trowel
 CHAPTER XV. The Fete of the Casting
 CHAPTER XVI. The Columbiad
 CHAPTER XVII. A Telegraphic Dispatch
 CHAPTER XVIII. The Passenger of the Atlanta
 CHAPTER XIX. A Monster Meeting
 CHAPTER XX. Attack and Riposte
 CHAPTER XXI. How A Frenchman Manages An Affair
 CHAPTER XXII. The New Citizen of the United States
 CHAPTER XXIII. The Projectile-Vehicle
 CHAPTER XXIV. The Telescope of the Rocky Mountains
 CHAPTER XXV. Final Details
 CHAPTER XXVI. Fire!
 CHAPTER XXVII. Foul Weather
 CHAPTER XXVIII. A New Star

Contents: Round the Moon

 PRELIMINARY CHAPTER—Recapitulating the First Part of

This Work, and Serving as a Preface to the Second
 CHAPTER I. From Twenty Minutes Past Ten to Forty-Seven Minutes Past Ten P. M.
 CHAPTER II. The First Half Hour
 CHAPTER III. Their Place of Shelter
 CHAPTER IV. A Little Algebra
 CHAPTER V. The Cold of Space
 CHAPTER VI. Question and Answer
 CHAPTER VII. A Moment of Intoxication
 CHAPTER VIII.At Seventy-Eight Thousand Five Hundred and Fourteen Leagues
 CHAPTER IX. The Consequences of A Deviation
 CHAPTER X. The Observers of the Moon
 CHAPTER XI. Fancy and Reality
 CHAPTER XII. Orographic Details
 CHAPTER XIII. Lunar Landscapes
 CHAPTER XIV. The Night of Three Hundred and Fifty-Four Hours and A Half
 CHAPTER XV. Hyperbola or Parabola
 CHAPTER XVI. The Southern Hemisphere
 CHAPTER XVII. Tycho
 CHAPTER XVIII. Grave Questions
 CHAPTER XIX. A Struggle Against the Impossible
 CHAPTER XX. The Soundings of the Susquehanna
 CHAPTER XXI. J. T. Maston Recalled
 CHAPTER XXII. Recovered From the Sea
 CHAPTER 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 quâ 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.