It ran as follows:—­

“In north lat. 20 deg. 7’, and west long. 41 deg. 37’, the projectile of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific, on December 12th, at 1.17 am.  Send instructions.—­BLOMSBERRY, Commander Susquehanna.”

Five minutes afterwards the whole town of San Francisco knew the tidings.  Before 6 p.m. the different States of the Union had intelligence of the supreme catastrophe.  After midnight, through the cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the great American enterprise.

It would be impossible to describe the effect produced throughout the world by the unexpected news.

On receipt of the telegram the Secretary of the Navy telegraphed to the Susquehanna to keep under fire, and wait in the bay of San Francisco.  She was to be ready to set sail day or night.

The Observatory of Cambridge had an extraordinary meeting, and, with the serenity which distinguishes scientific bodies, it peacefully discussed the scientific part of the question.

At the Gun Club there was an explosion.  All the artillerymen were assembled.  The Vice-President, the Honourable Wilcome, was just reading the premature telegram by which Messrs. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just been perceived in the gigantic reflector of Long’s Peak.  This communication informed them also that the bullet, retained by the attraction of the moon, was playing the part of sub-satellite in the solar world.

The truth on this subject is now known.

However, upon the arrival of Blomsberry’s message, which so formally contradicted J.T.  Maston’s telegram, two parties were formed in the bosom of the Gun Club.  On the one side were members who admitted the fall of the projectile, and consequently the return of the travellers.  On the other were those who, holding by the observations at Long’s Peak, concluded that the commander of the Susquehanna was mistaken.  According to the latter, the pretended projectile was only a bolis, nothing but a bolis, a shooting star, which in its fall had fractured the corvette.  Their argument could not very well be answered, because the velocity with which it was endowed had made its observation very difficult.  The commander of the Susquehanna and his officers might certainly have been mistaken in good faith.  One argument certainly was in their favour:  if the projectile had fallen on the earth it must have touched the terrestrial spheroid upon the 27th degree of north latitude, and, taking into account the time that had elapsed, and the earth’s movement of rotation, between the 41st and 42nd degree of west longitude.

However that might be, it was unanimously decided in the Gun Club that Blomsberry’s brother Bilsby and Major Elphinstone should start at once for San Francisco and give their advice about the means of dragging up the projectile from the depths of the ocean.

These men started without losing an instant, and the railway which was soon to cross the whole of Central America took them to St. Louis, where rapid mail-coaches awaited them.