Free The Moon-Voyage by Jules Verne

pyroxyle," answered Elphinstone.
    "Or fulminating cotton," replied Morgan.
    "Is there not an American name to put at the bottom of this discovery?"
exclaimed J.T. Maston, animated by a lively sentiment of patriotism.
    "Not one, unfortunately," replied the major.
    "Nevertheless, to satisfy Maston," resumed the president, "I may tell
him that one of our fellow-citizens may be annexed to the study of the
celluosity, for collodion, which is one of the principal agents in
photography, is simply pyroxyle dissolved in ether to which alcohol has
been added, and it was discovered by Maynard, then a medical student."
    "Hurrah for Maynard and fulminating cotton!" cried the noisy secretary
of the Gun Club.
    "I return to pyroxyle," resumed Barbicane. "You are acquainted with its
properties which make it so precious to us. It is prepared with the
greatest facility; cotton plunged in smoking nitric acid for fifteen
minutes, then washed in water, then dried, and that is all."
    "Nothing is more simple, certainty," said Morgan.
    "What is more, pyroxyle is not damaged by moisture, a precious quality
in our eyes, as it will take several days to load the cannon. Its
inflammability takes place at 170° instead of at 240° and its
deflagration is so immediate that it may be fired on ordinary gunpowder
before the latter has time to catch fire too."
    "Perfect," answered the major.
    "Only it will cost more."
    "What does that matter?" said J.T. Maston.
    "Lastly, it communicates to projectiles a speed four times greater than
that of gunpowder. I may even add that if 8/10ths of its weight of
nitrate of potash is added its expansive force is still greatly
augmented."
    "Will that be necessary?" asked the major.
    "I do not think so," answered Barbicane. "Thus instead of 1,600,000 lbs.
of powder, we shall only have 400,000 lbs. of fulminating cotton, and as
we can, without danger, compress 500 lbs. of cotton into 27 cubic feet,
that quantity will not take up more than 180 feet in the chamber of the
Columbiad. By these means the projectile will have more than 700 feet of
chamber to traverse under a force of 6,000,000,000 of litres of gas
before taking its flight over the Queen of Night."
    Here J.T. Maston could not contain his emotion. He threw himself into
the arms of his friend with the violence of a projectile, and he would
have been stove in had he not have been bombproof.
    This incident ended the first sitting of the committee. Barbicane and
his enterprising colleagues, to whom nothing seemed impossible, had just
solved the complex question of the projectile, cannon, and powder. Their
plan being made, there was nothing left but to put it into execution.
CHAPTER X.
ONE ENEMY AGAINST TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS.
    The American public took great interest in the least details of the Gun
Club's enterprise. It followed the committee debates day by day. The
most simple preparations for this great experiment, the questions of
figures it provoked, the mechanical difficulties to be solved, all
excited popular opinion to the highest pitch.
    More than a year would elapse between the commencement of the work and
its completion; but the interval would not be void of excitement. The
place to be chosen for the boring, the casting the metal of the
Columbiad, its perilous loading, all this was more than necessary to
excite public curiosity. The projectile, once fired, would be out of
sight in a few seconds; then what would become of it, how it would
behave in space, how it would reach the moon, none but a few privileged
persons would see with their own eyes. Thus, then, the preparations for
the experiment and the precise details of its execution constituted the
real source of interest.
    In the meantime the purely scientific attraction of the enterprise was
all at once heightened by an incident.
    It is known what numerous legions of admirers and friends the Barbicane
project had called round its author. But, notwithstanding the number and
importance of the majority, it