Pickaxe And Trowel

: From The Earth To The Moon

The same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to Tampa

Town; and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board the

Tampico for New Orleans. His object was to enlist an army of

workmen, and to collect together the greater part of the materials.

The members of the Gun Club remained at Tampa Town, for the

purpose of setting on foot the preliminary works by the aid of

the people of the country.



Eight days after its departure, the Tampico returned into the

bay of Espiritu Santo, with a whole flotilla of steamboats.

Murchison had succeeded in assembling together fifteen

hundred artisans. Attracted by the high pay and considerable

bounties offered by the Gun Club, he had enlisted a choice

legion of stokers, iron-founders, lime-burners, miners,

brickmakers, and artisans of every trade, without distinction

of color. As many of these people brought their families with

them, their departure resembled a perfect emigration.



On the 31st of October, at ten o'clock in the morning, the troop

disembarked on the quays of Tampa Town; and one may imagine the

activity which pervaded that little town, whose population was

thus doubled in a single day.



During the first few days they were busy discharging the cargo

brought by the flotilla, the machines, and the rations, as well

as a large number of huts constructed of iron plates, separately

pieced and numbered. At the same period Barbicane laid the

first sleepers of a railway fifteen miles in length, intended to

unite Stones Hill with Tampa Town. On the first of November

Barbicane quitted Tampa Town with a detachment of workmen; and

on the following day the whole town of huts was erected round

Stones Hill. This they enclosed with palisades; and in respect

of energy and activity, it might have been mistaken for one of

the great cities of the Union. Everything was placed under a

complete system of discipline, and the works were commenced in

most perfect order.



The nature of the soil having been carefully examined, by means

of repeated borings, the work of excavation was fixed for the

4th of November.



On that day Barbicane called together his foremen and addressed

them as follows: "You are well aware, my friends, of the

object with which I have assembled you together in this wild

part of Florida. Our business is to construct a cannon measuring

nine feet in its interior diameter, six feet thick, and with a

stone revetment of nineteen and a half feet in thickness. We have,

therefore, a well of sixty feet in diameter to dig down to a

depth of nine hundred feet. This great work must be completed

within eight months, so that you have 2,543,400 cubic feet of

earth to excavate in 255 days; that is to say, in round numbers,

2,000 cubic feet per day. That which would present no difficulty

to a thousand navvies working in open country will be of course

more troublesome in a comparatively confined space. However, the

thing must be done, and I reckon for its accomplishment upon your

courage as much as upon your skill."



At eight o'clock the next morning the first stroke of the

pickaxe was struck upon the soil of Florida; and from that

moment that prince of tools was never inactive for one moment

in the hands of the excavators. The gangs relieved each other

every three hours.



On the 4th of November fifty workmen commenced digging, in the

very center of the enclosed space on the summit of Stones Hill,

a circular hole sixty feet in diameter. The pickaxe first

struck upon a kind of black earth, six inches in thickness,

which was speedily disposed of. To this earth succeeded two

feet of fine sand, which was carefully laid aside as being

valuable for serving the casting of the inner mould. After the

sand appeared some compact white clay, resembling the chalk of

Great Britain, which extended down to a depth of four feet.

Then the iron of the picks struck upon the hard bed of the soil;

a kind of rock formed of petrified shells, very dry, very solid,

and which the picks could with difficulty penetrate. At this

point the excavation exhibited a depth of six and a half feet

and the work of the masonry was begun.



At the bottom of the excavation they constructed a wheel of oak,

a kind of circle strongly bolted together, and of immense strength.

The center of this wooden disc was hollowed out to a diameter

equal to the exterior diameter of the Columbiad. Upon this wheel

rested the first layers of the masonry, the stones of which were

bound together by hydraulic cement, with irresistible tenacity.

The workmen, after laying the stones from the circumference to

the center, were thus enclosed within a kind of well twenty-one

feet in diameter. When this work was accomplished, the miners

resumed their picks and cut away the rock from underneath the wheel

itself, taking care to support it as they advanced upon blocks of

great thickness. At every two feet which the hole gained in depth

they successively withdrew the blocks. The wheel then sank little

by little, and with it the massive ring of masonry, on the upper

bed of which the masons labored incessantly, always reserving some

vent holes to permit the escape of gas during the operation of

the casting.



This kind of work required on the part of the workmen extreme

nicety and minute attention. More than one, in digging

underneath the wheel, was dangerously injured by the splinters

of stone. But their ardor never relaxed, night or day. By day

they worked under the rays of the scorching sun; by night, under

the gleam of the electric light. The sounds of the picks against

the rock, the bursting of mines, the grinding of the machines,

the wreaths of smoke scattered through the air, traced around

Stones Hill a circle of terror which the herds of buffaloes and

the war parties of the Seminoles never ventured to pass.

Nevertheless, the works advanced regularly, as the steam-cranes

actively removed the rubbish. Of unexpected obstacles there was

little account; and with regard to foreseen difficulties, they

were speedily disposed of.



At the expiration of the first month the well had attained the

depth assigned for that lapse of time, namely, 112 feet. This depth

was doubled in December, and trebled in January.



During the month of February the workmen had to contend with a

sheet of water which made its way right across the outer soil.

It became necessary to employ very powerful pumps and

compressed-air engines to drain it off, so as to close up the

orifice from whence it issued; just as one stops a leak on

board ship. They at last succeeded in getting the upper hand of

these untoward streams; only, in consequence of the loosening of

the soil, the wheel partly gave way, and a slight partial

settlement ensued. This accident cost the life of several workmen.



No fresh occurrence thenceforward arrested the progress of the

operation; and on the tenth of June, twenty days before the

expiration of the period fixed by Barbicane, the well, lined

throughout with its facing of stone, had attained the depth of

900 feet. At the bottom the masonry rested upon a massive block

measuring thirty feet in thickness, while on the upper portion

it was level with the surrounding soil.



President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly

congratulated their engineer Murchison; the cyclopean work had

been accomplished with extraordinary rapidity.



During these eight months Barbicane never quitted Stones Hill

for a single instant. Keeping ever close by the work of

excavation, he busied himself incessantly with the welfare

and health of his workpeople, and was singularly fortunate

in warding off the epidemics common to large communities of

men, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe which

are exposed to the influences of tropical climates.



Many workmen, it is true, paid with their lives for the rashness

inherent in these dangerous labors; but these mishaps are impossible

to be avoided, and they are classed among the details with which

the Americans trouble themselves but little. They have in fact

more regard for human nature in general than for the individual

in particular.



Nevertheless, Barbicane professed opposite principles to these,

and put them in force at every opportunity. So, thanks to his

care, his intelligence, his useful intervention in all

difficulties, his prodigious and humane sagacity, the average of

accidents did not exceed that of transatlantic countries, noted

for their excessive precautions-- France, for instance, among

others, where they reckon about one accident for every two

hundred thousand francs of work.



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