<h2 id="sigil_toc_id_29">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
<h3 id="sigil_toc_id_30">PICKAXE AND TROWEL.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 colour. As many of these people brought their
families with them, their departure resembled a perfect
emigration.</p>
<p>On the 31st 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.</p>
<p>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
shortly been mistaken for one of the great cities of the Union.
Everything was placed under a complete system of dicipline, and the
works were commenced in most perfect order.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>within eight months,</i> so that you have
2,543,400 cubic feet of earth to excavate in 255 days; that is to
say, in round numbers, 2000 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."</p>
<p>At eight o'clock in the 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.</p>
<p>On the 4th of November fifty workmen commenced digging, in the
very centre 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 for 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 feet and a half and the
work of the masonry was begun.</p>
<p>At the bottom of this excavation they constructed a wheel of oak,
a kind of circle strongly bolted together, and of immense strength.
The centre 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 centre, 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 <i>wheel</i> 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 <i>wheel</i> then sank little by little, and with it
the massive ring of masonry, on the upper bed of which the masons
laboured incessantly, always reserving some vent holes to permit the
escape of gas during the operation of casting.</p>
<p>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
ardour 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.</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: THE WORK PROGRESSED REGULARLY." id="work" src=
"images/work.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">THE WORK PROGRESSED REGULARLY.</div>
<p>At the expiration of the first month the well had attained the
depth assigned for that lapse of time, viz. 112 feet. This depth was
doubled in December, and trebled in January.</p>
<p>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 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.</p>
<p>No fresh occurrence thenceforward arrested the progress of the
operation; and on the 10th 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, whilst on the upper portion it was level with the
surrounding soil.</p>
<p>President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmly
congratulated their engineer Murchison: the cyclopean work had been
accomplished with extraordinary rapidity.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Many workmen, it is true, paid with their lives for the rashness
inherent in these dangerous labours; but these mishaps are impossible
to be avoided, and they are classed amongst 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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