During the Federal war in the United States a new and very influential club was established in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It is well known with what energy the military instinct was developed am...

On the 5th of October, at 8 p.m., a dense crowd pressed into the saloons of the Gun Club, 21, Union-square. All the members of the club residing at Baltimore had gone on the invitation of their presid...

It is impossible to depict the effect produced by the last words of the honourable president. What cries! what vociferations! What a succession of groans, hurrahs, cheers, and all the onomatopoeia of ...

In the meantime Barbicane did not lose an instant amidst the enthusiasm of which he was the object. His first care was to call together his colleagues in the boardroom of the Gun Club. There, after a ...

A spectator endowed with infinite power of sight, and placed at the unknown centre round which gravitates the universe, would have seen myriads of atoms filling all space during the chaotic epoch of c...

The immediate effect of Barbicane’s proposition was that of bringing out all astronomical facts relative to the Queen of Night. Everybody began to study her assiduously. It seemed as if the moon had a...

The Cambridge Observatory had, in its memorable letter of October 7th, treated the question from an astronomical point of view⁠—the mechanical point had still to be treated. It was then that the pract...

The resolutions passed at this meeting produced a great effect outside. Some timid people grew alarmed at the idea of a projectile weighing 20,000 lbs. hurled into space. People asked what cannon coul...

The question of powder still remained to be settled. The public awaited this last decision with anxiety. The size of the projectile and length of the cannon being given, what would be the quantity of ...

The American public took great interest in the least details of the Gun Club’s enterprise. It followed the committee debates day by day. The most simple preparations for this great experiment, the que...

There still remained one question to be decided⁠—a place favourable to the experiment had to be chosen. According to the recommendation of the Cambridge Observatory the gun must be aimed perpendicular...

The astronomical, mechanical, and topographical difficulties once removed, there remained the question of money. An enormous sum was necessary for the execution of the project. No private individual, ...

Since the choice made by the members of the Gun Club to the detriment of Texas, everyone in America⁠—where everyone knows how to read⁠—made it his business to study the geography of Florida. Never bef...

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 ...

During the eight months that were employed in the operation of boring the preparatory works of the casting had been conducted simultaneously with extreme rapidity; a stranger arriving at Stony Hill wo...

Had the operation of casting succeeded? People were reduced to mere conjecture. However, there was every reason to believe in its success, as the mould had absorbed the entire mass of metal liquefied ...

The great work undertaken by the Gun Club was now virtually ended, and yet two months would still elapse before the day the projectile would start for the moon. These two months would seem as long as ...

If this wonderful news, instead of coming by telegraph, had simply arrived by post and in a sealed envelope⁠—if the French, Irish, Newfoundland, and American telegraph clerks had not necessarily been ...

The next day the sun did not rise early enough to satisfy public impatience. Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet questions would be put to Michel Ardan, would like to have reduced his auditors to a sma...

This incident seemed to have terminated the discussion, but when the agitation had subsided these words were heard uttered in a loud and severe voice:⁠— “Now that the orator has allowed his fancy to r...

Whilst the duel was being discussed between the president and the captain⁠—a terrible and savage duel in which each adversary became a man-hunter⁠—Michel Ardan was resting after the fatigues of his tr...

That day all America heard about the duel and its singular termination. The part played by the chivalrous European, his unexpected proposition which solved the difficulty, the simultaneous acceptation...

After the celebrated Columbiad was completed public interest immediately centred upon the projectile, the new vehicle destined to transport the three bold adventurers across space. No one had forgotte...

On the 20th of October of the preceding year, after the subscription list was closed, the president of the Gun Club had credited the Cambridge Observatory with the sums necessary for the construction ...

It was the 22nd of November. The supreme departure was to take place ten days later. One operation still remained to bring it to a happy termination, a delicate and perilous operation exacting infinit...

The 1st of December came, the fatal day, for if the projectile did not start that very evening at 10:46:40 p.m., more than eighteen years would elapse before the moon would present the same simultaneo...

At the moment when the pyramid of flame rose to a prodigious height in the air it lighted up the whole of Florida, and for an incalculable moment day was substituted for night over a considerable exte...

That same night the news so impatiently expected burst like a thunderbolt over the United States of the Union, and thence darting across the Atlantic it ran along all the telegraphic wires of the glob...