📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 72
1ONE ENEMY v. TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS OF FRIENDS The American public took a lively interest in the smallest details of the
2enterprise of the Gun Club. It followed day by day the discussion of the committee. The most simple preparations for the
3great experiment, the questions of figures which it involved, the mechanical difficulties to be resolved--in one word,
4the entire plan of work--roused the popular excitement to the highest pitch. The purely scientific attraction was
5suddenly intensified by the following incident: We have seen what legions of admirers and friends Barbicane's project
6had rallied round its author. There was, however, one single individual alone in all the States of the Union who
7protested against the attempt of the Gun Club. He attacked it furiously on every opportunity, and human nature is such
8that Barbicane felt more keenly the opposition of that one man than he did the applause of all the others. He was well
9aware of the motive of this antipathy, the origin of this solitary enmity, the cause of its personality and old
10standing, and in what rivalry of self-love it had its rise. This persevering enemy the president of the Gun Club had
11never seen. Fortunate that it was so, for a meeting between the two men would certainly have been attended with serious
12consequences. This rival was a man of science, like Barbicane himself, of a fiery, daring, and violent disposition; a
13pure Yankee. His name was Captain Nicholl; he lived at Philadelphia. Most people are aware of the curious struggle which
14arose during the Federal war between the guns and armor of iron-plated ships. The result was the entire reconstruction
15of the navy of both the continents; as the one grew heavier, the other became thicker in proportion. The Merrimac, the
16Monitor, the Tennessee, the Weehawken discharged enormous projectiles themselves, after having been armor-clad against
17the projectiles of others. In fact they did to others that which they would not they should do to them--that grand
18principle of immortality upon which rests the whole art of war. Now if Barbicane was a great founder of shot, Nicholl
19was a great forger of plates; the one cast night and day at Baltimore, the other forged day and night at Philadelphia.
20As soon as ever Barbicane invented a new shot, Nicholl invented a new plate; each followed a current of ideas
21essentially opposed to the other. Happily for these citizens, so useful to their country, a distance of from fifty to
22sixty miles separated them from one another, and they had never yet met. Which of these two inventors had the advantage
23over the other it was difficult to decide from the results obtained. By last accounts, however, it would seem that the
24armor-plate would in the end have to give way to the shot; nevertheless, there were competent judges who had their
25doubts on the point. At the last experiment the cylindro-conical projectiles of Barbicane stuck like so many pins in the
26Nicholl plates. On that day the Philadelphia iron-forger then believed himself victorious, and could not evince contempt
27enough for his rival; but when the other afterward substituted for conical shot simple 600-pound shells, at very
28moderate velocity, the captain was obliged to give in. In fact, these projectiles knocked his best metal plate to
29shivers. Matters were at this stage, and victory seemed to rest with the shot, when the war came to an end on the very
30day when Nicholl had completed a new armor-plate of wrought steel. It was a masterpiece of its kind, and bid defiance to
31all the projectiles of the world. The captain had it conveyed to the Polygon at Washington, challenging the president of
32the Gun Club to break it. Barbicane, peace having been declared, declined to try the experiment. Nicholl, now furious,
33offered to expose his plate to the shock of any shot, solid, hollow, round, or conical. Refused by the president, who
34did not choose to compromise his last success. Nicholl, disgusted by this obstinacy, tried to tempt Barbicane by
35offering him every chance. He proposed to fix the plate within two hundred yards of the gun. Barbicane still obstinate
36in refusal. A hundred yards? Not even seventy-five! "At fifty then!" roared the captain through the newspapers. "At
37twenty-five yards! and I'll stand behind!" Barbicane returned for answer that, even if Captain Nicholl would be so good
38as to stand in front, he would not fire any more. Nicholl could not contain himself at this reply; threw out hints of
39cowardice; that a man who refused to fire a cannon-shot was pretty near being afraid of it; that artillerists who fight
40at six miles distance are substituting mathematical formulae for individual courage. To these insinuations Barbicane
41returned no answer; perhaps he never heard of them, so absorbed was he in the calculations for his great enterprise.
42When his famous communication was made to the Gun Club, the captain's wrath passed all bounds; with his intense jealousy
43was mingled a feeling of absolute impotence. How was he to invent anything to beat this 900-feet Columbiad? What
44armor-plate could ever resist a projectile of 30,000 pounds weight? Overwhelmed at first under this violent shock, he by
45and by recovered himself, and resolved to crush the proposal by weight of his arguments. He then violently attacked the
46labors of the Gun Club, published a number of letters in the newspapers, endeavored to prove Barbicane ignorant of the
47first principles of gunnery. He maintained that it was absolutely impossible to impress upon any body whatever a
48velocity of 12,000 yards per second; that even with such a velocity a projectile of such a weight could not transcend
49the limits of the earth's atmosphere. Further still, even regarding the velocity to be acquired, and granting it to be
50sufficient, the shell could not resist the pressure of the gas developed by the ignition of 1,600,000 pounds of powder;
51and supposing it to resist that pressure, it would be less able to support that temperature; it would melt on quitting
52the Columbiad, and fall back in a red-hot shower upon the heads of the imprudent spectators. Barbicane continued his
53work without regarding these attacks. Nicholl then took up the question in its other aspects. Without touching upon its
54uselessness in all points of view, he regarded the experiment as fraught with extreme danger, both to the citizens, who
55might sanction by their presence so reprehensible a spectacle, and also to the towns in the neighborhood of this
56deplorable cannon. He also observed that if the projectile did not succeed in reaching its destination (a result
57absolutely impossible), it must inevitably fall back upon the earth, and that the shock of such a mass, multiplied by
58the square of its velocity, would seriously endanger every point of the globe. Under the circumstances, therefore, and
59without interfering with the rights of free citizens, it was a case for the intervention of Government, which ought not
60to endanger the safety of all for the pleasure of one individual. In spite of all his arguments, however, Captain
61Nicholl remained alone in his opinion. Nobody listened to him, and he did not succeed in alienating a single admirer
62from the president of the Gun Club. The latter did not even take the pains to refute the arguments of his rival.
63Nicholl, driven into his last entrenchments, and not able to fight personally in the cause, resolved to fight with
64money. He published, therefore, in the Richmond Inquirer a series of wagers, conceived in these terms, and on an
65increasing scale: No. 1 ($1,000).--That the necessary funds for the experiment of the Gun Club will not be forthcoming.
66No. 2 ($2,000).--That the operation of casting a cannon of 900 feet is impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed. No. 3
67($3,000).--That is it impossible to load the Columbiad, and that the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under the
68pressure of the projectile. No. 4 ($4,000).--That the Columbiad will burst at the first fire. No. 5 ($5,000).--That the
69shot will not travel farther than six miles, and that it will fall back again a few seconds after its discharge. It was
70an important sum, therefore, which the captain risked in his invincible obstinacy. He had no less than $15,000 at stake.
71Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of May he received a sealed packet containing the following
72superbly laconic reply: "BALTIMORE, October 19. "Done. "BARBICANE."
🎉 全部完成！共 72 行