The Fete Of The Casting

: From The Earth To The Moon

During the eight months which were employed in the work of

excavation the preparatory works of the casting had been carried

on simultaneously with extreme rapidity. A stranger arriving at

Stones Hill would have been surprised at the spectacle offered

to his view.



At 600 yards from the well, and circularly arranged around it as

a central point, rose 1,200 reverberating ovens, each six feet

in diameter, and separated from each other by an interval of

three feet. The circumference occupied by these 1,200 ovens

presented a length of two miles. Being all constructed on the

same plan, each with its high quadrangular chimney, they

produced a most singular effect.



It will be remembered that on their third meeting the committee

had decided to use cast iron for the Columbiad, and in particular

the white description. This metal, in fact, is the most

tenacious, the most ductile, and the most malleable, and

consequently suitable for all moulding operations; and when

smelted with pit coal, is of superior quality for all

engineering works requiring great resisting power, such as

cannon, steam boilers, hydraulic presses, and the like.



Cast iron, however, if subjected to only one single fusion,

is rarely sufficiently homogeneous; and it requires a second

fusion completely to refine it by dispossessing it of its last

earthly deposits. So long before being forwarded to Tampa Town,

the iron ore, molten in the great furnaces of Coldspring, and

brought into contact with coal and silicium heated to a high

temperature, was carburized and transformed into cast iron.

After this first operation, the metal was sent on to Stones Hill.

They had, however, to deal with 136,000,000 pounds of iron, a

quantity far too costly to send by railway. The cost of

transport would have been double that of material. It appeared

preferable to freight vessels at New York, and to load them with

the iron in bars. This, however, required not less than sixty-

eight vessels of 1,000 tons, a veritable fleet, which, quitting

New York on the 3rd of May, on the 10th of the same month ascended

the Bay of Espiritu Santo, and discharged their cargoes, without

dues, in the port at Tampa Town. Thence the iron was transported

by rail to Stones Hill, and about the middle of January this

enormous mass of metal was delivered at its destination.



It will easily be understood that 1,200 furnaces were not too

many to melt simultaneously these 60,000 tons of iron. Each of

these furnaces contained nearly 140,000 pounds weight of metal.

They were all built after the model of those which served for

the casting of the Rodman gun; they were trapezoidal in shape,

with a high elliptical arch. These furnaces, constructed of

fireproof brick, were especially adapted for burning pit coal,

with a flat bottom upon which the iron bars were laid. This bottom,

inclined at an angle of 25 degrees, allowed the metal to flow into

the receiving troughs; and the 1,200 converging trenches carried

the molten metal down to the central well.



The day following that on which the works of the masonry and

boring had been completed, Barbicane set to work upon the

central mould. His object now was to raise within the center of

the well, and with a coincident axis, a cylinder 900 feet high,

and nine feet in diameter, which should exactly fill up the

space reserved for the bore of the Columbiad. This cylinder was

composed of a mixture of clay and sand, with the addition of a

little hay and straw. The space left between the mould and the

masonry was intended to be filled up by the molten metal, which

would thus form the walls six feet in thickness. This cylinder,

in order to maintain its equilibrium, had to be bound by iron

bands, and firmly fixed at certain intervals by cross-clamps

fastened into the stone lining; after the castings these would

be buried in the block of metal, leaving no external projection.



This operation was completed on the 8th of July, and the run of

the metal was fixed for the following day.



"This fete of the casting will be a grand ceremony," said J.

T. Maston to his friend Barbicane.



"Undoubtedly," said Barbicane; "but it will not be a public fete"



"What! will you not open the gates of the enclosure to all comers?"



"I must be very careful, Maston. The casting of the Columbiad

is an extremely delicate, not to say a dangerous operation, and

I should prefer its being done privately. At the discharge of

the projectile, a fete if you like-- till then, no!"



The president was right. The operation involved unforeseen

dangers, which a great influx of spectators would have hindered

him from averting. It was necessary to preserve complete

freedom of movement. No one was admitted within the enclosure

except a delegation of members of the Gun Club, who had made the

voyage to Tampa Town. Among these was the brisk Bilsby, Tom

Hunter, Colonel Blomsberry, Major Elphinstone, General Morgan,

and the rest of the lot to whom the casting of the Columbiad was

a matter of personal interest. J. T. Maston became their cicerone.

He omitted no point of detail; he conducted them throughout the

magazines, workshops, through the midst of the engines, and

compelled them to visit the whole 1,200 furnaces one after

the other. At the end of the twelve-hundredth visit they were

pretty well knocked up.



The casting was to take place at twelve o'clock precisely.

The previous evening each furnace had been charged with 114,000

pounds weight of metal in bars disposed cross-ways to each other,

so as to allow the hot air to circulate freely between them.

At daybreak the 1,200 chimneys vomited their torrents of flame

into the air, and the ground was agitated with dull tremblings.

As many pounds of metal as there were to cast, so many pounds of

coal were there to burn. Thus there were 68,000 tons of coal

which projected in the face of the sun a thick curtain of smoke.

The heat soon became insupportable within the circle of furnaces,

the rumbling of which resembled the rolling of thunder. The powerful

ventilators added their continuous blasts and saturated with

oxygen the glowing plates. The operation, to be successful,

required to be conducted with great rapidity. On a signal given

by a cannon-shot each furnace was to give vent to the molten

iron and completely to empty itself. These arrangements made,

foremen and workmen waited the preconcerted moment with an

impatience mingled with a certain amount of emotion. Not a soul

remained within the enclosure. Each superintendent took his

post by the aperture of the run.



Barbicane and his colleagues, perched on a neighboring eminence,

assisted at the operation. In front of them was a piece of

artillery ready to give fire on the signal from the engineer.

Some minutes before midday the first driblets of metal began to

flow; the reservoirs filled little by little; and, by the time

that the whole melting was completely accomplished, it was kept

in abeyance for a few minutes in order to facilitate the

separation of foreign substances.



Twelve o'clock struck! A gunshot suddenly pealed forth and shot

its flame into the air. Twelve hundred melting-troughs were

simultaneously opened and twelve hundred fiery serpents crept

toward the central well, unrolling their incandescent curves.

There, down they plunged with a terrific noise into a depth of

900 feet. It was an exciting and a magnificent spectacle.

The ground trembled, while these molten waves, launching into the

sky their wreaths of smoke, evaporated the moisture of the mould

and hurled it upward through the vent-holes of the stone lining

in the form of dense vapor-clouds. These artificial clouds

unrolled their thick spirals to a height of 1,000 yards into

the air. A savage, wandering somewhere beyond the limits of the

horizon, might have believed that some new crater was forming in

the bosom of Florida, although there was neither any eruption,

nor typhoon, nor storm, nor struggle of the elements, nor any of

those terrible phenomena which nature is capable of producing.

No, it was man alone who had produced these reddish vapors,

these gigantic flames worthy of a volcano itself, these

tremendous vibrations resembling the shock of an earthquake,

these reverberations rivaling those of hurricanes and storms;

and it was his hand which precipitated into an abyss, dug by

himself, a whole Niagara of molten metal!