struction
of their Columbiad.

"Halt!" cried Barbicane, stopping. "Has this place any name?"

"It is called Stony Hill," answered the Floridians.

Barbicane, without saying a word, dismounted, took his instruments, and
began to fix his position with extreme precision. The little troop drawn
up around him watched him in profound silence.

At that moment the sun passed the meridian. Barbicane, after an
interval, rapidly noted the result of his observation, and said--

"This place is situated 1,800 feet above the sea level in lat. 27 deg. 7'
and West long. 5 deg. 7' by the Washington meridian. It appears to me by its
barren and rocky nature to offer every condition favourable to our
enterprise; we will therefore raise our magazines, workshops, furnaces,
and workmen's huts here, and it is from this very spot," said he,
stamping upon it with his foot, "the summit of Stony Hill, that our
projectile will start for the regions of the solar world!"

CHAPTER XIV.

PICKAXE AND TROWEL.

That same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to Tampa Town,
and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board the _Tampico_ for New
Orleans. He was to engage an army of workmen to bring back the greater
part of the working-stock. The members of the Gun Club remained at Tampa
Town in order to set on foot the preliminary work with the assistance of
the inhabitants of the country.

Eight days after its departure the _Tampico_ returned to the
Espiritu-Santo Bay with a fleet of steamboats. Murchison had succeeded
in getting together 1,500 workmen. In the evil days of slavery he would
have lost his time and trouble; but since America, the land of liberty,
has only contained freemen, they flock wherever they can get good pay.
Now money was not wanting to the Gun Club; it offered a high rate of
wages with considerable and proportionate perquisites. The workman
enlisted for Florida could, once the work finished, depend upon a
capital placed in his name in the bank of Baltimore.

Murchison had therefore only to pick and choose, and could be severe
about the intelligence and skill of his workmen. He enrolled in his
working legion the pick of mechanics, stokers, iron-founders,
lime-burners, miners, brickmakers, and artisans of every sort, white or
black without distinction of colour. Many of them brought their families
with them. It was quite an emigration.

On the 31st of October, at 10 a.m., this troop landed on the quays of
T