can name to put at the bottom of this discovery?"
exclaimed J.T. Maston, animated by a lively sentiment of patriotism.

"Not one, unfortunately," replied the major.

"Nevertheless, to satisfy Maston," resumed the president, "I may tell
him that one of our fellow-citizens may be annexed to the study of the
celluosity, for collodion, which is one of the principal agents in
photography, is simply pyroxyle dissolved in ether to which alcohol has
been added, and it was discovered by Maynard, then a medical student."

"Hurrah for Maynard and fulminating cotton!" cried the noisy secretary
of the Gun Club.

"I return to pyroxyle," resumed Barbicane. "You are acquainted with its
properties which make it so precious to us. It is prepared with the
greatest facility; cotton plunged in smoking nitric acid for fifteen
minutes, then washed in water, then dried, and that is all."

"Nothing is more simple, certainty," said Morgan.

"What is more, pyroxyle is not damaged by moisture, a precious quality
in our eyes, as it will take several days to load the cannon. Its
inflammability takes place at 170 deg. instead of at 240 deg. and its
deflagration is so immediate that it may be fired on ordinary gunpowder
before the latter has time to catch fire too."

"Perfect," answered the major.

"Only it will cost more."

"What does that matter?" said J.T. Maston.

"Lastly, it communicates to projectiles a speed four times greater than
that of gunpowder. I may even add that if 8/10ths of its weight of
nitrate of potash is added its expansive force is still greatly
augmented."

"Will that be necessary?" asked the major.

"I do not think so," answered Barbicane. "Thus instead of 1,600,000 lbs.
of powder, we shall only have 400,000 lbs. of fulminating cotton, and as
we can, without danger, compress 500 lbs. of cotton into 27 cubic feet,
that quantity will not take up more than 180 feet in the chamber of the
Columbiad. By these means the projectile will have more than 700 feet of
chamber to traverse under a force of 6,000,000,000 of litres of gas
before taking its flight over the Queen of Night."

Here J.T. Maston could not contain his emotion. He threw himself into
the arms of his friend with the violence of a projectile, and he would
have been stove in had he not have been bombproof.

This incident ended the first sitting of the committee. Barbicane and
his enterprising colleagues, to whom nothing seemed impossible, had just
solved t