s, and letters
full of threats inundated his house. Which course ought he to decide
upon? In the point of view of fitness of soil, facility of
communications, and rapidity of transport, the rights of the two states
were really equal. As to the political personalities, they had nothing
to do with the question.

Now this hesitation and embarrassment had already lasted some time when
Barbicane resolved to put an end to it; he called his colleagues
together, and the solution he proposed to them was a profoundly wise
one, as will be seen from the following:--

"After due consideration," said he, "of all that has just occurred
between Florida and Texas, it is evident that the same difficulties will
again crop up between the towns of the favoured state. The rivalry will
be changed from state to city, and that is all. Now Texas contains
eleven towns with the requisite conditions that will dispute the honour
of the enterprise, and that will create fresh troubles for us, whilst
Florida has but one; therefore I decide for Tampa Town!"

The Texican deputies were thunderstruck at this decision. It put them
into a terrible rage, and they sent nominal provocations to different
members of the Gun Club. There was only one course for the magistrates
of Baltimore to take, and they took it. They had the steam of a special
train got up, packed the Texicans into it, whether they would or no, and
sent them away from the town at a speed of thirty miles an hour.

But they were not carried off too quickly to hurl a last and threatening
sarcasm at their adversaries.

Making allusion to the width of Florida, a simple peninsula between two
seas, they pretended it would not resist the shock, and would be blown
up the first time the cannon was fired.

"Very well! let it be blown up!" answered the Floridans with a laconism
worthy of ancient times.

CHAPTER XII.

"URBI ET ORBI."

The astronomical, mechanical, and topographical difficulties once
removed, there remained the question of money. An enormous sum was
necessary for the execution of the project. No private individual, no
single state even, could have disposed of the necessary millions.

President Barbicane had resolved--although the enterprise was
American--to make it a business of universal interest, and to ask every
nation for its financial co-operation. It was the bounded right and duty
of all the earth to interfere in the business of the satellite. The
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