From the Earth to the Moon · Chapter
Pickaxe and Trowel explained
Barbicane and his companions return to Tampa Town, and engineer Murchison recruits 1,500 skilled workmen from New Orleans.
What happens
Barbicane and his companions return to Tampa Town, and engineer Murchison recruits 1,500 skilled workmen from New Orleans. The workforce arrives on October 31, doubling the town's population. Barbicane oversees the construction of a railway to Stony Hill and the excavation of a 900-foot-deep, 60-foot-wide well for the Columbiad. Digging begins on November 4, using an innovative method where masonry is laid simultaneously with boring. Despite challenges—a water spring, a landslip, and worker casualties—the well is completed on June 10, twenty days ahead of schedule. Barbicane's careful management minimizes accidents and maintains worker health.
Themes in this chapter
Scientific Progress and Innovation
The chapter details the innovative boring method where masonry is laid simultaneously with excavation, the use of steam-cranes and electric lights, and the engineering solutions to overcome water springs and landslips.
Human Ambition and Exploration
Barbicane's relentless drive and the workforce's dedication to complete a 900-foot-deep well in under nine months exemplify human ambition to achieve the extraordinary goal of reaching the moon.
Risk and Sacrifice for Knowledge
Several workers are mortally wounded by stone splinters and die in a landslip; Barbicane acknowledges such accidents as unavoidable, yet his careful management reduces the casualty rate compared to other large projects.
Characters to notice
- Impey Barbicane
Leads the entire operation, laying the first sleepers of the railway, animating the workforce, and overseeing every detail of the excavation. He remains at Stony Hill for eight months, ensuring worker health and safety.
- J. T. Maston
Follows Barbicane everywhere, described as his 'bluebottle fly,' assisting and observing the work.
- Murchison
The engineer who recruits the 1,500 workmen from New Orleans, oversees the boring operations, and is warmly congratulated by Barbicane and the Gun Club upon the well's completion.
Key passages
“Murchison had succeeded in getting together 1,500 workmen. In the evil days of slavery he would have lost his time and trouble; but since America, the land of liberty, has only contained freemen, they flock wherever they can get good pay.”
Murchison recruited 1,500 workers easily because free men in America are drawn to high wages, unlike during slavery times when such a workforce would have been hard to assemble.
Highlights the shift from slave to free labor in post-Civil War America.
“Barbicane was the soul of this army of workmen who had come at his call. He animated them, communicated to them his ardour, enthusiasm, and conviction. He was everywhere at once, as if endowed with the gift of ubiquity, and always followed by J. T. Maston, his bluebottle fly.”
Barbicane inspired the workers with his passion and seemed to be present everywhere at once, with Maston constantly trailing behind him like a persistent insect.
Emphasizes Barbicane's charismatic leadership and Maston's devoted presence.
“At 8 a.m. the first spadeful was dug out of the Floridian soil, and from that moment this useful tool did not stop idle a moment in the hands of the miner.”
The excavation began at 8 a.m. on November 4, and from then on the miners worked continuously without pause.
Marks the official start of the digging for the Columbiad.
“This accident cost the life of several workmen. Three weeks had to be taken up in propping the stone revetment and making the wheel solid again.”
A landslip killed several workers and required three weeks to repair the stone lining and reinforce the wheel.
Describes a major setback and loss of life during construction.