such were the advantages promised by barbicane’s changing the axis of rotation—a change, however, which would only slightly affect the movement of our spheroid round the sun. the earth would continue to describe its orbit through space, and the conditions of the solar year would remain the same.
when the consequences of the change of axis were brought to the knowledge of the world, they caused extraordinary excitement. at first this problem of the higher mechanics received an enthusiastic welcome. the idea of having seasons of constant equality, and, according to the latitude, “to suit consumers,” was very attractive. the crowd revelled in the thought that they could enjoy the perpetual spring which the bard of telemachus accorded to the island of calypso, and that they could have the spring either fresh or mild. where the new axis was to be seemed to be the secret of barbicane, nicholl, and j. t. maston, which they were in no hurry to present to the public. would they reveal it in advance, or would it be known after the experiment? it would be as well to say so, perhaps, as opinion began to show signs of anxiety in the matter.
one observation occurred naturally to the mind, and was at once commented on in the newspapers. by what mechanical means was the change to be produced, which evidently required the employment of an enormous force?
the forum, an important new york review, very justly remarked:—
“if the earth did not turn on its axis, it is probable that a relatively feeble shock would suffice to give a movement of rotation round an axis arbitrarily chosen; but the earth is like an enormous gyroscope moving at high velocity, and it is a natural law that such an apparatus has a tendency to turn round the same axis, as foucault demonstrated in his well-known experiments. it will therefore be very difficult, if not impossible, to shift it.”
but after asking what would be the effort required by the engineers of the north polar practical association, it was at least as interesting to know if the effort was to be suddenly or insensibly applied. and if it was to be a sudden effort, would not the proceedings of messrs. barbicane & co. produce some rather alarming catastrophes on the face of the earth?
here was something to occupy the brains of the wise and foolish. a shock is a shock, and it is never agreeable to receive the blow or the counter-blow. there was a likelihood that the promoters of the enterprise had been so busy with the advantages the world was to possess that they had overlooked the destruction the operation would entail. and with considerable cleverness the major and his allies made the most of this, and began to agitate public opinion against the president of the gun club.
although france had taken no part in the syndicating, and officially treated the matter with disdain, yet there was in that country an individual who conceived the idea of setting out for baltimore, to follow, for his own private satisfaction, the different phases of the enterprise.
he was a mining engineer of about five and thirty years of age. he had been the first on the list when admitted to the polytechnic school, and he had been the first on the list when he left it, so that he must have been a mathematician of the first order, and probably superior to j. t. maston, who, though he was a long way above the average, was only a calculator after all—that is to say, what leverrier was compared to newton or laplace.
this engineer was a man of brains, and—though he was none the worse for that—somewhat of a humourist, and an original. in conversation with his intimates, even when he talked science, his language was more that of the slang of the streets than of the academical formulæ he employed when he wrote. he was a wonderful worker, being accustomed to sit for ten hours at a stretch before his table, writing pages on pages of algebra with as much ease as he would have written a letter.
this singular man was called pierdeux (alcide), and in his way of condensing it—as is the custom of his comrades—he generally signed himself ierd, or even i, without even dotting the i. he was so perfervid in his discussions that he had been named sulphuric alcide. not only was he big, but he was tall. his friends affirmed that his height was exactly the five millionth part of a quarter of the meridian, and they were not far out. although his head was rather too small for his powerful bust and shoulders, yet he held it well, and piercing were the eyes that looked through his pince-nez. he was chiefly distinguished by one of those physiognomies in which gaiety and gravity intermingle, and his hair had been prematurely thinned by the abuse of algebraic signs under the light of the gas-lamps in the study.
he was one of the best fellows whose memory lingers 78at the school. although his character was independent enough, he was always loyal to the requirements of code x, which is law among the polytechnicians in all that concerns comradeship and respect for the uniform. he was equally appreciated under the trees of the court of “acas,” so named because there are no acacias, as in the “casers,” the dormitories, in which the arrangements of his box, and the order that reigned in his “coffin,” denoted an absolutely methodical mind.
that the head of alcide pierdeux was a little too small for his body we admit, but that it was filled to the meninges will be believed. above all things, he was a mathematician like all his comrades are, or have been, but he only used his mathematics in application to experimental science, whose chief attraction to him was that it had much to do with industry. herein he recognized the inferior side of his nature. no one is perfect. his strong point was the study of those sciences which, notwithstanding their immense progress, have, and always will have, secrets for their followers.
alcide was still a bachelor. he was still “equal to one,” as he phrased it, although he had no objection to become “the half of two.” his friends had had ideas of marrying him to a very charming girl at martigues. but, unfortunately, she had a father, who responded to the first overtures in the following “martigalade:”—
“no, your alcide is too clever! he talks to my poor girl in a way that is unintelligible to her!”
and hence alcide resolved to take a year’s holiday, and thought he could not employ his time better than in following the north polar practical association in its peculiar undertaking.
as soon as he arrived at baltimore he began to think over the matter seriously. that the earth would become jovian by the change of its axis mattered very little to him. but by what means it was to be brought about excited his curiosity, and not without reason.
in his picturesque language he said to himself,—
“evidently barbicane is going to give our ball a terrible knock; but what sort of a knock? everything depends on that! i suppose he is going to play for ‘side,’ as if with a cue at a billiard-ball; but if he hits us ‘square’ he may jolt us out of our orbit, and then the years will dance to a pretty tune. they are going to shift the old axis for a new one, probably above it, but i do not see where they are to get their taking-off place from, or how they are to manage the knock. if there was no rotation, a mere flip would suffice, but they can’t put down that diurnal spin. that is the canisdentum.”
he meant “the rub,” but that was his way of expressing himself.
“whatever they do,” he continued, “there will be no end of a row before it is over.”
try all he could, the engineer could not discover barbicane’s plan, which for one reason was much to be regretted, as if it had been known to him he would at once have made the calculations he needed.
but all at present was a mystery. and so it happened that on the 29th of december alcide pierdeux, “ingénieur au corps national des mines de france,” was hurrying with lengthy strides through the crowded streets of baltimore.
