ften specious and of bad metal.

Firstly, Barbicane was violently attacked about his figures. Nicholl
tried to prove by A + B the falseness of his formulae, and he accused
him of being ignorant of the rudimentary principles of ballistics.
Amongst other errors, and according to Nicholl's own calculations, it
was impossible to give any body a velocity of 12,000 yards a second. He
sustained, algebra in hand, that even with that velocity a projectile
thus heavy would never pass the limits of the terrestrial atmosphere. It
would not even go eight leagues! Better still. Granted the velocity, and
taking it as sufficient, the shot would not resist the pressure of the
gas developed by the combustion of 1,600,000 pounds of powder, and even
if it did resist that pressure, it at least would not support such a
temperature; it would melt as it issued from the Columbiad, and would
fall in red-hot rain on the heads of the imprudent spectators.

Barbicane paid no attention to these attacks, and went on with his work.

Then Nicholl considered the question in its other aspects. Without
speaking of its uselessness from all other points of view, he looked
upon the experiment as exceedingly dangerous, both for the citizens who
authorised so condemnable a spectacle by their presence, and for the
towns near the deplorable cannon. He also remarked that if the
projectile did not reach its destination, a result absolutely
impossible, it was evident that it would fall on to the earth again, and
that the fall of such a mass multiplied by the square of its velocity
would singularly damage some point on the globe. Therefore, in such a
circumstance, and without any restriction being put upon the rights of
free citizens, it was one of those cases in which the intervention of
government became necessary, and the safety of all must not be
endangered for the good pleasure of a single individual.

It will be seen to what exaggeration Captain Nicholl allowed himself to
be carried. He was alone in his opinion. Nobody took any notice of his
Cassandra prophecies. They let him exclaim as much as he liked, till his
throat was sore if he pleased. He had constituted himself the defender
of a cause lost in advance. He was heard but not listened to, and he did
not carry off a single admirer from the president of the Gun Club, who
did not even take the trouble to refute his rival's arguments.

Nicholl, driven into his last intrenchments, and not being able to figh