one penny of profit to any human being. We had
therefore, purely on the ground of its benefit to
mankind, brought it before an assembly of Boston men and
women.

Then there was a pause, and we could hear our watches
tick, and our hearts beat. Dear George asked me in a
whisper if he should say anything more, but I thought
not. The pause became painful, and then Tom Coram,
prince of merchants, rose. Had any calculation been made
of the probable cost of the experiment of one moon?

I said the calculations were on the table. The brick
alone would cost $60,000. Mr. Orcutt had computed that
$214,729 would complete two flywheels and one moon. This
made no allowance for whitewashing the moon, which was
not strictly necessary. The fly-wheels and water-power
would be equally valuable for the succeeding moons, it
any were attempted, and therefore the second moon could
be turned off, it was hoped, for $159,732.

Thomas Coram had been standing all the time I spoke,
and in an instant he said: "I am no mathematician. But
I have had a ship ground to pieces under me on the
Laccadives because our chronometer was wrong. You need
$250,000 to build your first moon. I will be one of
twenty men to furnish the money; or I will pay $10,000
to-morrow for this purpose, to any person who may be
named as treasurer, to be repaid to me if the moon is not
finished this day twenty years."