“Now!” said he in the tone of a Leonidas at Thermopylæ. “_Now_ you can do your duty.”
An hour afterwards he was in the gaol at Baltimore.
And that was probably the best thing that could have happened to him, for the populace were in such a state of excitement that the police might have found themselves powerless to protect him.
CHAPTER XI. THE CONTENTS OF THE NOTE-BOOK.
The book seized by the Baltimore police contained thirty pages, sprinkled with formulæ, multiplications, equations, and finally the general results of J. T. Maston’s calculation. It was a work of the higher mechanics, appreciable only by mathematicians. One of the equations was the—
V^2 - (V_{ 0})^2 = 2_g_(_r__{ 0})^2(1/_r_ - 1/_r__{ 0})
The “general reader” could make neither head nor tail of Maston’s performances; but they could understand the results as communicated to the newspapers a few days afterwards.
There was nothing wrong with J. T. Maston’s working, the Commission reported. The calculations had been made with such precision that the Commission had no doubt as to their accuracy and consequences. If the operation was effected, the terrestrial axis would be undoubtedly changed, and then the catastrophes foreseen would be accomplished in all their plenitude.
“The object,” said the official communication to the newspapers, “of the directorate of the North Polar Practical Association is the substitution of a new axis of rotation for the old one; and it is proposed to attain this object by means of the recoil of an apparatus fixed in some agreed upon point of the Earth’s circumference. If the core of this apparatus is firmly fixed in the ground, there can be no doubt but that it would communicate its recoil to the mass of our planet.
“The apparatus adopted by the Association is a monster cannon, which would have no effect if discharged vertically. To produce the maximum effect it must be aimed horizontally towards the north or south, and it is this latter direction which has been decided on by the Association. In this way the recoil will produce a shock towards the north of the nature of that given to a billiard-ball when struck on the side.”
“As soon as the explosion takes place, the centre of the Earth will be displaced in a direction parallel to that of the impetus, and a change will ensue in the plane of the orbit, and consequently in the length of the year; but this will be so slight as to be of no appreciable amount. At the same time the Earth would take a movement of rotation around an axis, supposing that no rotation existed previous to the shock. But as the rotation in the line of the Poles already exists, it will combine with the accessory rotation produced by the recoil, and result in a new axis. If the gun is fired at the moment when the Equator and the Ecliptic are in intersection, and if the recoil is enough to displace the Pole 23° 28′, then the new axis will become perpendicular to the plane of the orbit.