Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen Eight Months in Kilimanjaro

The Wammase region is located in eastern Central Africa, between the coast of Zanzibar and the Great Lakes region.Victoria - Lakes Nyanza and Tanganyika form many inland seas here.If we know anything about the area, it is because of the visits of the Englishman Earl Johnston Turkley and the German Dr. Meyer.There are three or four million blacks in this mountainous area, which is under the administration of Sultan Baribari. Three degrees below the equator, stands the Kilimanjaro Mountains, with the towering Kibo peak at 5,704 meters above sea level.To the south, north and west of the mountains is the vast and fertile Wamase plain, which adjoins Victoria-Nyanza Lake through the Mozambique region.

A few miles away from the lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro is the small town of Kisungo, where the Sultan's palace is located.In truth, the capital is nothing more than a large village.The inhabitants of Sudan are clever and clever, and they work as hard as slaves in chains. The sultan, considered one of the most prominent chieftains of the Central African tribes, strove to rid himself of British influence, or rather British domination. Director Barbicane and Captain Nicole arrived at the town of Kisongo in the first week of January of that year, with only ten foremen devoted to the cause.

When they left America, only Mrs. Evangelina Scobie and Marston knew.They took a boat from New York to the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Cape of Good Hope to Zanzibar Island in Zanzibar.There, secretly chartered a boat and went to the port of Mombasa in Africa.The Sultan sent a convoy to wait for them at the port.They traveled more than a hundred miles through rugged mountains, blocked forests, blocked rivers, and swamps, and finally arrived at the Sultan's palace. After figuring out Ma Sitong's calculations, Director Barbicane got in touch with Bari Bari through a Swedish explorer who had recently lived in this African region for several years.Director Barbicane's famous flight around the moon also spread to these remote areas, and the Sultan became his most fanatical supporter and developed friendship with the brave Americans.Without even specifying the purpose, Chief Wamasai agreed to Imbi Barbican to carry out their huge project at the southern foot of Mount Kilimanjaro.For $300,000, Balibali provided the necessary personnel, and even made an exception to allow the huge Mount Kilimanjaro to be disposed of at will.It can be bulldozed if you like, or removed if you can.So, like the North Pole, the Arctic Experiment Association actually became the owner of the mountain, and Sudan could also benefit from it.

Director Barbicane and his colleagues received an extremely warm welcome.Barry Barry has a kind of admiration close to admiration for these two outstanding travelers who traveled thousands of miles to develop the North Pole, and has extraordinary sympathy for the founder who is about to carry out mysterious projects in his kingdom.Therefore, he promised the Americans: absolute secrecy!Whether it is himself or his subordinates, they will fully cooperate.The working blacks are not allowed to leave the scene for a day, otherwise they will receive the most severe punishment. That's why the project was kept so secret that even the most astute police officers in America and Europe didn't know about it.At last the secret was discovered, and that was because the Sultan had loosened his grip after the work was finished, and besides, there were traitors or gossipers everywhere, not without exception among the Negroes.That's why the Consul in Zanzibar, Richard Wood Trust, became aware of what was happening on Kilimanjaro.However, that was September 13, and it was too late to stop Director Barbicane's plans.

Why did Director Barbicane choose Vamase as the experimental site?First of all, the geographical conditions of the place are suitable, and it is in a little-known part of Africa, far away from the places usually visited by tourists.Secondly, Mount Kilimanjaro can provide him with two conditions necessary for engineering: firmness and orientation.In addition, the raw materials needed for the project are locally available and easy to mine. Long before leaving the United States, Director Barbicane had learned from Swedish explorers that iron and coal were abundant at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and the ore seedlings were out of the ground, so there was no need to dig and find them.Iron and coal were readily available, far in excess of what was needed for the project.In addition, near the mountain, there are large quantities of nitrates and pyrites required for the manufacture of Meri-Merolite explosives.

Director Barbicane and Nicole brought only ten infallible foremen to direct the more than ten thousand Negroes Barry provided.It fell to these Negroes to build the gigantic cannons and their gigantic launch sites. Two weeks after Director Barbican and his colleagues arrived in Wamase, they established three huge construction sites at the southern foot of Mount Kilimanjaro: one for casting cannons, one for making shells, and one for making Meri-Merorit explosives. How did Director Barbicane cast such a huge cannon?If no launcher can be built, this will be the last hope for the salvation of the inhabitants of the old and new continents.As we shall see and understand, this hope, too, has failed.

It is already quite difficult to manufacture a 42cm caliber cannon that fires 780kg shells loaded with 274kg of explosives.Casting a cannon a million times larger than a twenty-seven-centimeter cannon is beyond the reach of manpower.Director Barbicane and Captain Nicole, therefore, gave no thought to it.What they want to make is not a cannon, but a tunnel dug in the hard Mount Kilimanjaro, or it can be said to be a "mine". To make a cannon, a Colombian cannon, is extremely expensive and extremely difficult.In order to prevent the barrel from exploding, the thickness of the tube wall is not known how thick it must be.Barbicane had long thought of digging a mine.If Ma Sitong remembered a cannon in his notebook, he just wanted to use the 27cm cannon as the basis for his calculations.

From the very beginning, the site was chosen on a 100-foot-high slope at the southern foot of the mountain, with an endless plain at the foot of the mountain.When the cannonball shoots out of Kilimanjaro, there will be no hindrance. Digging this tunnel was very difficult and the construction had to be extremely precise.But Barbicane could easily make a rock drilling machine, which was activated by the compressed air produced by the powerful waterfall pouring down from the mountain.After the tunnel was drilled by a rock drill, it was filled with Merri-Merorit explosives.High explosives will not blow up the rock because it is an extremely hard wall of orthoclase and amphibole.This kind of rock can resist the terrible pressure generated by the expansion of gas, which can be said to be a natural barrel.Mount Kilimanjaro is also high and thick enough to protect the exterior from any cracks or bursts.

Under the brilliant leadership of director Barbicane, nearly ten thousand workers led by the foreman worked enthusiastically and attentively.In less than six months, a "mine shaft" with a diameter of 27 meters and a depth of 600 meters was completed.In order to make the shell slide along the extremely smooth inner wall, so as not to waste the gas generated during the explosion, the inner wall is also equipped with a very smooth cast iron sleeve. Compared with the famous Columbia city project of the moon landing base, this project is more spectacular and exciting.For engineers in the world today, is there anything in the world that they cannot do?

While the tunnels on the mountainside of Kilimanjaro were completed, workers at another site were building the metal shell and making the huge launch site. This launch site will be a huge conical casting, requiring 180,000 tons of steel! The projectile is not a whole casting, but is composed of several parts each weighing a thousand tons, which must be sent into the tunnel one by one, placed close to the inner wall, and the Merri-Merolite explosives are placed in advance, and then the These parts are bolted together to form a compact unit that slides along the inner wall of the pipe. The construction site needs 400,000 tons of iron ore, 70,000 tons of limestone and 280,000 tons of coke, and the latter alone requires 400,000 tons of good coal to be smelted.The iron ore is right next to Mount Kilimanjaro, and it can be pushed with a small cart.

Building iron-making blast furnaces is the most difficult.A month later, however, ten thirty-meter-high blast furnaces were in operation.Each blast furnace produces 180 tons of pig iron per day.Twenty-four hours is 1,800 tons, and after 100 working days, it is 180,000 tons. On the site where the Merri-Melorit explosives were manufactured, the work was also proceeding very smoothly.The secrecy work is done extremely well, so no one knows exactly what the explosives are made of. Everything was going as expected, not even in the factories of Grosso, Kell, Jundel, Sino, Birkenholt, Volvo, or Cockerill.For a $300,000 project, no mistakes are allowed.Sultan looked very excited.All the projects, he personally inspected the site.It is not difficult to imagine that with this terrible Majesty present, how dare his loyal subjects and servants not work in full swing? When Barry Barry asked what the works were for, Director Barbicane replied: "This is a project that changes the face of the world!" "It will bring indelible glory to Sultan Baribari among all East African monarchs!" added Captain Nicole. Sudan was flattered and did not know how proud he was. On August 29, the project was fully completed.The inside diameter of the tunnel was dug just right.It has a total length of 600 meters and is equipped with a smooth barrel. There are 2,000 tons of Merri-Merorit explosives placed in the innermost part, and it is connected with the primer box.Then, there is the 105-meter-long projectile.After deducting the positions occupied by the explosives and shells, there are still 492 meters left to the muzzle, which can ensure that the propulsion generated by the expansion of the gas can achieve the best effect. With everything in place, the reader may ask a purely ballistic question: Will the shell deviate from the trajectory calculated by Ma Sitong?impossible.His calculations are very precise.The angle by which the missile should be deflected east of the Kilimanjaro meridian, based on the Earth's rotation.According to the huge initial velocity of the launch site, he described clearly what kind of hyperbolic surface the projectile should draw in the air. Readers also ask: Can the projectile be seen after it is fired?invisible.After it exits the tunnel, it will enter the shadow of the earth.It was so close to the ground and flying so fast that it was impossible for people to see it.Then, it will enter the bright area illuminated by the sun, but because it is too small on the one hand, and on the other hand has escaped the gravity of the earth and has become an eternal planet in the solar system, it is difficult to find it even with the largest astronomical telescope. Director Barbicane and Captain Nicole should be proud of what they have just completed! The project was carried out completely according to Ma Sitong's calculations, but he could not come here to appreciate his masterpiece of precise calculations.When that earth-shattering loud noise woke up the entire African world, he was far, far away... Thinking of him, the two colleagues conjectured that the Secretary of the Gunners Club must have left the "Balistick Lodge" after his escape from the Baltimore prison, and was hiding somewhere in the utmost secrecy to preserve his precious life.They don't know to what extent public opinion has attacked the Arctic Real Adventure Association.Nor did they have the slightest idea that if they were caught, they might be killed, quartered, and burned to death.They are so lucky that when the shells shoot into the sky, they will be cheered and saluted by the natives of East Africa. On the evening of September 22, as the two of them lay lazily in front of the successfully completed project, Captain Nicole said to Director Barbicane: "At last I can take a breath." "Yes,...it's finally finished!" Imbi Barbicang breathed a sigh of relief. "If you have to start over..." "Hey! . . . let's do it all over again!" "Merry-Mellorit dynamite is good, lucky us!" Nicole said. "It will make you famous, Nicole!" "Probably, Barbicane," replied Captain Nicole modestly, "do you know that it would be difficult to achieve the same effect if we had only the kind of gunpowder that we used to launch to the moon?" How many tunnels have to be dug on the mountainside of Mount Majaro!" "What do you think?" "One hundred and eighty, Barbicane." "Then we'll dig too, Captain!" "There are one hundred and eighty rounds of shells weighing 180,000 tons!" "We'll cast too, Nicole!" Hearing these words, what else can you say?Since the gunners orbited the moon, what miracle could they not perform? Only a few hours before the launch, Director Barbicane and Captain Nicole congratulated each other thus.On the same night, Algid Pierre was in the Baltimore office, facing the paper covered with algebraic formulas on the table, he screamed like an Indian, and suddenly stood up from the table. stand up: "Ma Sitong, you bastard!... Beast!... He should have asked me to do the calculations for him!... How did I not find out? If I knew where he is now, I would invite him to dinner, in his department I'll have a glass of champagne with him when the thing that destroys everything roars!" When he gets a hand of strange cards, he also likes to howl like this: "Old monster, I don't know how he calculates... Of course, the cannons on Mount Kilimanjaro will definitely go off, but as we said in school It's the same, loud farts don't stink, he's busy for nothing, and he's still a long way from achieving his goal!"