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    From the Earth to the Moon
    From the Earth to the Moon
    From the Earth to the Moon
    Ebook184 pages3 hours

    From the Earth to the Moon

    By Jules Verne

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    According to Wikipedia: "a humorous science fantasy story written in 1865 by Jules Verne and is one of the earliest entries in that genre. It tells the story of three well-to-do members of a post-American Civil War gun club who build an enormous sky-facing columbiad and launch themselves in a projectile/spaceship from it to a Moon landing." Also according to Wikipedia: "Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Journey to the Center of the Earth (written in 1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction", along with H. G. Wells.Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha Christie with 4162 translations, according to Index Translationum. Some of his work has been made into films."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455303953
    Author

    Jules Verne

    Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. Verne is considered a major French and European author, as he has a wide influence on avant-garde and surrealist literary movements, and is also credited as one of the primary inspirations for the steampunk genre. However, his influence does not stop in the literary sphere. Verne’s work has also provided invaluable impact on scientific fields as well. Verne is best known for his series of bestselling adventure novels, which earned him such an immense popularity that he is one of the world’s most translated authors.

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      Book preview

      From the Earth to the Moon - Jules Verne

      FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON BY JULES VERNE

      published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

      established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

      Books by Jules Verne in English translation:

      Five Weeks in a Balloon, or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen

      Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon

      Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, an Underwater Tour of the World

      Adventures of a Special Correspondent, among the Various Races and Countries of Central Asia, Being the Exploits and Experiences of Claudius Bombarnac of the Twentieth Century

      All Around the Moon

      Around the World in Eighty Days

      Blockade Runners

      Celebrated Travels and Travellers: The Exploration of the World

      Celebrated Travels and Travellers: The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century

      Celebrated Travels and Travellers: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century

      Dick Sand or a Captain at Fifteen

      The English at the North Pole, Part 1 of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras

      The Field of Ice, Part 2 of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras

      Facing the Flag

      From the Earth to the Moon

      The Fur Country or Seventy Degrees North Latitude

      Godfrey Morgan

      In Search of the Castaways (sometimes called The Children of of Captain Grant and A Voyage Around the World)

      A Journey into the Interior of the Earth

      Master of the World

      Michael Strogoff or the Courier of the Czar

      The Mysterious Island

      Off on a Comet or Hector Servadac

      Robur the Conqueror

      Round the Moon (sequel to From the Earth to the Moon)

      The Secret of the Island (sequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea)

      The Survivors of the Chancellor

      Ticket No. 9672

      Topsy-Turvy

      The Underground City or The Black Indies (sometimes called The Chlid of the Cavern)

      A Voyage in a Balloon (short story)

      The Waif of the Cynthia

      feedback welcome: info@samizdat.com

      visit us at samizdat.com

      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

                 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

      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 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 Gun Club, erstwhile so noisy in their seances, were reduced to silence by this disastrous peace and gave themselves up wholly to dreams of a Platonic kind of artillery.

      This is horrible! said Tom Hunter one evening, while rapidly carbonizing his wooden legs in the fireplace of the smoking-room; nothing to do! nothing to look forward to! what a loathsome existence!  When again shall the guns arouse us in the morning with their delightful reports?

      Those days are gone by, said jolly Bilsby, trying to extend his missing arms.  It was delightful once upon a time! One invented a gun, and hardly was it cast, when one hastened to try it in the face of the enemy!  Then one returned to camp with a word of encouragement from Sherman or a friendly shake of the hand from McClellan.  But now the generals are gone back to their counters; and in place of projectiles, they despatch bales of cotton.  By Jove, the future of gunnery in America is lost!

      Ay! and no war in prospect! continued the famous James T. Maston, scratching with his steel hook his gutta-percha cranium. Not a cloud on the horizon! and that too at such a critical period in the progress of the science of artillery!  Yes, gentlemen! I who address you have myself this very morning perfected a model (plan, section, elevation, etc.) of a mortar destined to change all the conditions of warfare!

      No! is it possible? replied Tom Hunter, his thoughts reverting involuntarily to a former invention of the Hon. J. T. Maston, by which, at its first trial, he had succeeded in killing three hundred and thirty-seven people.

      Fact! replied he.  Still, what is the use of so many studies worked out, so many difficulties vanquished?  It's mere waste of time!  The New World seems to have made up its mind to live in peace; and our bellicose Tribune predicts some approaching catastrophes arising out of this scandalous increase of population.

      Nevertheless, replied Colonel Blomsberry, they are always struggling in Europe to maintain the principle of nationalities.

      Well?

      Well, there might be some field for enterprise down there; and if they would accept our services----

      What are you dreaming of? screamed Bilsby; work at gunnery for the benefit of foreigners?

      That would be better than doing nothing here, returned the colonel.

      Quite so, said J. T. Matson; but still we need not dream of that expedient.

      And why not? demanded the colonel.

      Because their ideas of progress in the Old World are contrary to our American habits of thought.  Those fellows believe that one can't become a general without having served first as an ensign; which is as much as to say that one can't point a gun without having first cast it oneself!

      Ridiculous! replied Tom Hunter, whittling with his bowie-knife the arms of his easy chair; but if that be the case there, all that is left for us is to plant tobacco and distill whale-oil.

      What! roared J. T. Maston, shall we not employ these remaining years of our life in perfecting firearms?  Shall there never be a fresh opportunity of trying the ranges of projectiles? Shall the air never again be lighted with the glare of our guns? No international difficulty ever arise to enable us to declare war against some transatlantic power?  Shall not the French sink one of our steamers, or the English, in defiance of the rights of nations, hang a few of our countrymen?

      No such luck, replied Colonel Blomsberry; nothing of the kind is likely to happen; and even if it did, we should not profit by it. American susceptibility is fast declining, and we are all going to the dogs.

      It is too true, replied J. T. Maston, with fresh violence; there are a thousand grounds for fighting, and yet we don't fight. We save up our arms and legs for the benefit of nations who don't know what to do with them!  But stop-- without going out of one's way to find a cause for war-- did not North America once belong to the English?

      Undoubtedly, replied Tom Hunter, stamping his crutch with fury.

      Well, then, replied J. T. Maston, "why should not England in

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