Curator's Corner
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Up Front Portrait of Jules Verne, 1884. Courtesy of Gallica and the National Library of France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84497879/f1.item. Curator’s Corner By Leslie Przybylek, Senior Curator Front cover, From the Earth to Shooting the Moon with a the Moon, American edition, New York: Scribner, Armstrong Pittsburgh Icon & Company, 1874. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. From the moment people realized that the brightest object in the night sky was a solid body rather than just a glowing orb of light, they began envisioning ways to get there. Dreams of using a cannon to reach orbit around the Earth can be traced to 1687, when Sir Isaac Newton included the example of an “orbital cannon” in his milestone work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica [Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy]. But Newton’s idea presumed that the cannon would be set atop a high mountain, one so tall that its peak reached above Earth’s atmosphere. In 1865, French author Jules Verne published From the Earth to the Moon, a tale The projectile’s interior includes room for shelves, of three adventurers who used a gigantic space couches, and a dog. cannon to shoot themselves to the Moon Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. in a hollow capsule. Verne, who was almost certainly aware of Newton’s vision, instead dreamed of something rooted, however fancifully, in the real-world technology of the mid-19th century. Given the timing of the book in 1865, it is not surprising that he looked to the United States for inspiration. Although the connection to Pittsburgh is not specifed in the novel, the story of this gun 14 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | FALL 2018 THE INTERWR OF THE PROJZCTILE. epitomized the city’s technological prowess the transcontinental railroad. that can meet the extreme goal of achieving a during the mid-19th century and gave the city Verne was also deeply enamored with fred velocity of 12,000 yards per second. Tey a connection to an imaginary Moon journey the cultural and democratic experiment look to the “audacious ingenuity” of the most more than a century before the Apollo Moon of America. Even though he visited only well-known artillery from the Civil War: the landing. Te huge cannon used in Verne’s book once, he ofen set parts of his books or even “marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman.”3 to blast three men (and two dogs) into space entire stories in the United States.1 Although Te line refers to American cannons designed was modeled afer the Rodman Columbiad, his feelings about this country grew more by Robert Parker Parrott, John A. Dahlgren, a legendary Civil War cannon pioneered complicated over time, he never lost the sense and Tomas Jackson Rodman. by Tomas Jackson Rodman and produced that Americans were a people of “can-do” With little debate, the gun club members in 1864 at the Fort Pitt Foundry along the temperament, the fnest engineers and builders determine their selection: the Rodman Allegheny River in Pittsburgh. in the world. His belief was best expressed in a Columbiad has attained “the maximum 4 “Impossible is not an American word.” line from one of his later plays: “Impossible is velocity ever achieved at the time.” Tis pick 2 Verne was fascinated with science and with the not an American word.” underlines Verne’s knowledge of American technological innovations making their way The Rodman Columbiad technology and engineering. The phrase into everyday life by the 1860s and ’70s. His Set in the United States, From the Earth to “Rodman Columbiad” evoked the specter novels, especially the books in his adventure the Moon focuses on the members of the of the largest cannon of the Civil War and a series Voyages Extraordinaires, such as Twenty Baltimore Gun Club, a group of military technological marvel of the era: Rodman’s Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and veterans seeking new inspiration after the colossal 20-inch guns cast at Pittsburgh’s Fort 5 Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), ofen Civil War. When club leaders get the notion Pitt Foundry in 1864. Te production of these featured encounters between people and to shoot a projectile to the Moon using a large massive weapons elicited wide coverage in Harper’s technology—submarines, the Suez Canal, and cannon, they set out to fnd the technology newspapers and publications such as Weekly; it was exactly the sort of American “The Rodman Columbiad,” from engineering milestone that would have Jules Verne’s From the Earth to attracted Verne’s attention. Further references the Moon, 1874. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. within Verne’s text also reinforce the sense that he researched Rodman’s creation, from the format of the furnaces used to melt the The 20-inch bore of a Rodman gun could ft a man inside. This Rodman was en enormous volume of iron needed for the route to Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, N.Y., gun to the material used in its fring.6 Te in 1864 when it stopped long enough in Harrisburg, Pa., for a photo. illustration labeled “Te Rodman Columbiad” Ken Turner collection. (which also appeared in French editions) is not quite an accurate representation of the gun, but that was most likely out of the author’s control. A Moonshot in Florida Verne turned the Rodman Columbiad into a monstrous fantasy gun measuring 900 feet long, with a nine-foot interior diameter and barrel walls six feet thick. After debating between locations in Florida and Texas, the Baltimore Gun Club members WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | FALL 2018 15 Up Front settle upon Tampa Town in Florida and cast capsule of aluminium7 (another relatively survivable return trip.8 Jules Verne himself the gun there, using 12 furnaces each feeding new and exciting advancement) out of Earth’s sometimes claimed that he wasn’t so much 114,000 pounds of molten metal into the well atmosphere and hurtling toward the Moon. interested in the details of science as in the dug for the mold. Of course, the spectacle At the end of the book, the mission’s initial fantastic places that it allowed his characters to attracts crowds. Before the fnished cannon success is confrmed afer a few nervous days explore. Either way, his vision of space travel is loaded and fred, the gun club members when the capsule—carrying three human epitomized centuries of human dreaming congenially treat visitors to a view of its roomy passengers, two dogs, a small library, and a about a trip to the Moon. And his selection interior, lowering men, women, and children bottle of brandy—is spied heading to the Moon of a giant cannon, modeled clearly afer a into the “metallic abyss” in baskets suspended by a fctional observatory telescope atop Long’s real-life achievement cast along the banks of from steam cranes. Although such scenes Peak in Colorado. In a clifanger ending, the the Allegheny River in 1864, put Pittsburgh’s are pure fction, they nonetheless efectively mission’s full fate is not revealed until Verne’s technological know how right in the middle of forecast the excitement that accompanied the follow-up work, Around the Moon, published that dream. It really wasn’t such a far-fetched launches of the real American space program in 1870. Again, the story visualizes details vision afer all. in Florida in the 1960s. that foreshadow what will eventually come to Verne’s space gun accomplishes its pass, including the capsule’s return to Earth by 1 Verne’s only real trip to the United States did not take place until 1867. See: Arthur B. Evans, “Jules purpose. While the massive blast is so landing at sea. Verne’s America,” Extrapolation 48.1 (2006): 35-43. powerful that it causes an earthquake in About two decades later in 1894, a Copyright held by University of Texas Brownsville and Texas Southmost College. Accessed at http:// Florida, it succeeds in sending a conical Pennsylvania writer with the Wayne County scholarship.depauw.edu/mlang_facpubs/60/. Herald helpfully pointed out that 2 The reference is from Verne’s fantasy play, Journey Verne’s vision, although theoretically Through the Impossible, published in 1882, as recounted in Evans, “Jules Verne’s America,” 36. possible, would not allow for a .l' / ffilRJJlll/l, 3 Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon (English translation. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & lR/ll/lJl !lrdz1111a. This patent drawing shows the core Company, 1874), 2. In fact, both the Rodman and JYfo,2Jli. /Jt:7/,t/11;'117./ty.1;,1,1/7. barrel used to cool the real Rodman the Dahlgren guns were cast at the Fort Pitt Foundry. gun casting from the inside out. In 4 Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, 34. Verne’s story, the author envisioned a 900-foot pit similar to this used for 5 See: Andrew E. Masich, “Rodman’s Big Gun,” casting his fctional moon gun. Western Pennsylvania History (Winter 2015-2016): U.S. Patent and Trademarks Offce. 20-31. Coverage from a Pittsburgh newspaper that was republished in the New York Times dubbed the casting of these weapons as “one of the most important events in the history of the rebellion.” See “A Twenty-Inch Gun; Casting at the Fort Pitt Foundry,” The New York Times, February 21, 1864. 6 Verne notes that Rodman used powder “as large as chestnuts” and made from willow charcoal in the fring of his Columbiad: Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, 46. Regarding the furnaces, Verne observes: “Each of these furnaces contained nearly I 140,000 lbs.