The Powder Question
- Next up: gunpowder. Major Elphiston explains that they'll need a whopping 1,600,000 pounds of gunpowder. That won't even fit inside the cannon, though…
- As usual, Barbicane comes to the rescue. He suggests using gun-cotton, a compact substance that can achieve "a velocity four time superior to that of gunpowder" (9.56). They'll only need four hundred thousand pounds of it to achieve the same effect.