eeks,
rivers, watercourses, ponds, and small lakes; it might have been
mistaken for Holland or Guiana; but the ground gradually rose and soon
showed its cultivated plains, where all the vegetables of the North and
South grow in perfection, its immense fields, where a tropical sun and
the water conserved in its clayey texture do all the work of
cultivating, and lastly its prairies of pineapples, yams, tobacco, rice,
cotton, and sugarcanes, which extended as far as the eye could reach,
spreading out their riches with careless prodigality.

Barbicane appeared greatly satisfied on finding the progressive
elevation of the ground, and when J.T. Maston questioned him on the
subject,

"My worthy friend," said he, "it is greatly to our interest to cast our
Columbiad on elevated ground."

"In order to be nearer the moon?" exclaimed the secretary of the Gun
Club.

"No," answered Barbicane, smiling. "What can a few yards more or less
matter? No, but on elevated ground our work can be accomplished more
easily; we shall not have to struggle against water, which will save us
long and expensive tubings, and that has to be taken into consideration
when a well 900 feet deep has to be sunk."

"You are right," said Murchison, the engineer; "we must, as much as
possible, avoid watercourses during the casting; but if we meet with
springs they will not matter much; we can exhaust them with our machines
or divert them from their course. Here we have not to work at an
artesian well, narrow and dark, where all the boring implements have to
work in the dark. No; we can work under the open sky, with spade and
pickaxe, and, by the help of blasting, our work will not take long."

"Still," resumed Barbicane, "if by the elevation of the ground or its
nature we can avoid a struggle with subterranean waters, we can do our
work more rapidly and perfectly; we must, therefore, make our cutting in
ground situated some thousands of feet above the level of the sea."

"You are right, Mr. Barbicane, and, if I am not mistaken, we shall soon
find a suitable spot."

"I should like to see the first spadeful turned up," said the president.

"And I the last!" exclaimed J.T. Maston.

"We shall manage it, gentlemen," answered the engineer; "and, believe
me, the Goldspring Company will not have to pay you any forfeit for
delay."

"Faith! it had better not," replied J.T. Maston; "a hundred dollars a
day till the moon presents herself in the same conditions-