J.T.  Maston was inspired; his accents became quite lyrical as he chanted the hymn consecrated to the projectile.

“Would you like figures?” continued he; “here are eloquent ones.  Take the simple 24 pounder; though it moves 80,000 times slower than electricity, 64,000 times slower than light, 76 times slower than the earth in her movement of translation round the sun, yet when it leaves the cannon it goes quicker than sound; it goes at the rate of 14 miles a minute, 840 miles an hour, 20,100 miles a day—­that is to say, at the speed of the points of the equator in the globe’s movement of rotation, 7,336,500 miles a year.  It would therefore take 11 days to get to the moon, 12 years to get to the sun, 360 years to reach Neptune, at the limits of the solar world.  That is what this modest cannon-ball, the work of our hands, can do!  What will it be, therefore, when, with twenty times that speed, we shall hurl it with a rapidity of seven miles a second?  Ah! splendid shot! superb projectile!  I like to think you will be received up there with the honours due to a terrestrial ambassador!”

Cheers greeted this brilliant peroration, and J.T.  Maston, overcome with emotion, sat down amidst the felicitations of his colleagues.

“And now,” said Barbicane, “that we have given some time to poetry, let us proceed to facts.”

“We are ready,” answered the members of the committee as they each demolished half-a-dozen sandwiches.

“You know what problem it is we have to solve,” continued the president; “it is that of endowing a projectile with a speed of 12,000 yards per second.  I have every reason to believe that we shall succeed, but at present let us see what speeds we have already obtained; General Morgan can edify us upon that subject.”

“So much the more easily,” answered the general, “because during the war I was a member of the Experiment Commission.  The 100-pound cannon of Dahlgren, with a range of 5,000 yards, gave their projectiles an initial speed of 500 yards a second.”

“Yes; and the Rodman Columbiad?” (the Americans gave the name of “Columbiad” to their enormous engines of destruction) asked the president.

“The Rodman Columbiad, tried at Fort Hamilton, near New York, hurled a projectile, weighing half a ton, a distance of six miles, with a speed of 800 yards a second, a result which neither Armstrong nor Palliser has obtained in England.”

“Englishmen are nowhere!” said J.T.  Maston, pointing his formidable steel hook eastward.

“Then,” resumed Barbicane, “a speed of 800 yards is the maximum obtained at present.”

“Yes,” answered Morgan.

“I might add, however,” replied J.T.  Maston, “that if my mortar had not been blown up—­”

“Yes, but it was blown up,” replied Barbicane with a benevolent gesture.  “We must take the speed of 800 yards for a starting point.  We must keep till another meeting the discussion of the means used to produce this speed; allow me to call your attention to the dimensions which our projectile must have.  Of course it must be something very different to one of half a ton weight.”