CHAPTER XIV
PICKAXE AND TROWEL
The same evening Barbicane and his companions returned to TampaTown; and Murchison, the engineer, re-embarked on board theTampico for New Orleans. His object was to enlist an army ofworkmen, and to collect together the greater part of the materials.The members of the Gun Club remained at Tampa Town, for thepurpose of setting on foot the preliminary works by the aid ofthe people of the country.
Eight days after its departure, the Tampico returned into thebay of Espiritu Santo, with a whole flotilla of steamboats.Murchison had succeeded in assembling together fifteenhundred artisans. Attracted by the high pay and considerablebounties offered by the Gun Club, he had enlisted a choicelegion of stokers, iron-founders, lime-burners, miners,brickmakers, and artisans of every trade, without distinctionof color. As many of these people brought their families withthem, their departure resembled a perfect emigration.
On the 31st of October, at ten o'clock in the morning, the troopdisembarked on the quays of Tampa Town; and one may imagine theactivity which pervaded that little town, whose population wasthus doubled in a single day.
During the first few days they were busy discharging the cargobrought by the flotilla, the machines, and the rations, as wellas a large number of huts constructed of iron plates, separatelypieced and numbered. At the same period Barbicane laid thefirst sleepers of a railway fifteen miles in length, intended tounite Stones Hill with Tampa Town. On the first of NovemberBarbicane quitted Tampa Town with a detachment of workmen; andon the following day the whole town of huts was erected roundStones Hill. This they enclosed with palisades; and in respectof energy and activity, it might have been mistaken for one ofthe great cities of the Union. Everything was placed under acomplete system of discipline, and the works were commenced inmost perfect order.
The nature of the soil having been carefully examined, by meansof repeated borings, the work of excavation was fixed for the4th of November.
On that day Barbicane called together his foremen and addressedthem as follows: "You are well aware, my friends, of theobject with which I have assembled you together in this wildpart of Florida. Our business is to construct a cannon measuringnine feet in its interior diameter, six feet thick, and with astone revetment of nineteen and a half feet in thickness. We have,therefore, a well of sixty feet in diameter to dig down to adepth of nine hundred feet. This great work must be completedwithin eight months, so that you have 2,543,400 cubic feet ofearth to excavate in 255 days; that is to say, in round numbers,2,000 cubic feet per day. That which would present no difficultyto a thousand navvies working in open country will be of coursemore troublesome in a comparatively confined space. However, thething must be done, and I reckon for its accomplishment upon yourcourage as much as upon your skill."
At eight o'clock the next morning the first stroke of thepickaxe was struck upon the soil of Florida; and from thatmoment that prince of tools was never inactive for one momentin the hands of the excavators. The gangs relieved each otherevery three hours.
On the 4th of November fifty workmen commenced digging, in thevery center of the enclosed space on the summit of Stones Hill,a circular hole sixty feet in diameter. The pickaxe firststruck upon a kind of black earth, six inches in thickness,which was speedily disposed of. To this earth succeeded twofeet of fine sand, which was carefully laid aside as beingvaluable for serving the casting of the inner mould. After thesand appeared some compact white clay, resembling the chalk ofGreat 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 thispoint the excavation exhibited a depth of six and a half feetand 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 diameterequal to the exterior diameter of the Columbiad. Upon this wheelrested the first layers of the masonry, the stones of which werebound together by hydraulic cement, with irresistible tenacity.The workmen, after laying the stones from the circumference tothe center, were thus enclosed within a kind of well twenty-onefeet in diameter. When this work was accomplished, the minersresumed their picks and cut away the rock from underneath the wheelitself, taking care to support it as they advanced upon blocks ofgreat thickness. At every two feet which the hole gained in depththey successively withdrew the blocks. The wheel then sank littleby little, and with it the massive ring of masonry, on the upperbed of which the masons labored incessantly, always reserving somevent holes to permit the escape of gas during the operation ofthe casting.
This kind of work required on the part of the workmen extremenicety and minute attention. More than one, in diggingunderneath the wheel, was dangerously injured by the splintersof stone. But their ardor never relaxed, night or day. By daythey worked under the rays of the scorching sun; by night, underthe gleam of the electric light. The sounds of the picks againstthe rock, the bursting of mines, the grinding of the machines,the wreaths of smoke scattered through the air, traced aroundStones Hill a circle of terror which the herds of buffaloes andthe war parties of the Seminoles never ventured to pass.Nevertheless, the works advanced regularly, as the steam-cranesactively removed the rubbish. Of unexpected obstacles there waslittle account; and with regard to foreseen difficulties, theywere speedily disposed of.
At the expiration of the first month the well had attained thedepth assigned for that lapse of time, namely, 112 feet. This depthwas doubled in December, and trebled in January.
During the month of February the workmen had to contend with asheet of water which made its way right across the outer soil.It became necessary to employ very powerful pumps andcompressed-air engines to drain it off, so as to close up theorifice from whence it issued; just as one stops a leak onboard ship. They at last succeeded in getting the upper hand ofthese untoward streams; only, in consequence of the loosening ofthe soil, the wheel partly gave way, and a slight partialsettlement ensued. This accident cost the life of several workmen.
No fresh occurrence thenceforward arrested the progress of theoperation; and on the tenth of June, twenty days before theexpiration of the period fixed by Barbicane, the well, linedthroughout with its facing of stone, had attained the depth of900 feet. At the bottom the masonry rested upon a massive blockmeasuring thirty feet in thickness, while on the upper portionit was level with the surrounding soil.
President Barbicane and the members of the Gun Club warmlycongratulated their engineer Murchison; the cyclopean work hadbeen accomplished with extraordinary rapidity.
During these eight months Barbicane never quitted Stones Hillfor a single instant. Keeping ever close by the work ofexcavation, he busied himself incessantly with the welfareand health of his workpeople, and was singularly fortunatein warding off the epidemics common to large communities ofmen, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe whichare exposed to the influences of tropical climates.
Many workmen, it is true, paid with their lives for the rashnessinherent in these dangerous labors; but these mishaps are impossibleto be avoided, and they are classed among the details with whichthe Americans trouble themselves but little. They have in factmore regard for human nature in general than for the individualin particular.
Nevertheless, Barbicane professed opposite principles to these,and put them in force at every opportunity. So, thanks to hiscare, his intelligence, his useful intervention in alldifficulties, his prodigious and humane sagacity, the average ofaccidents did not exceed that of transatlantic countries, notedfor their excessive precautions-- France, for instance, amongothers, where they reckon about one accident for every twohundred thousand francs of work.