implacable enemy of the gentlemen of the South, those ancient
cavaliers of the mother country. In a word, he was a Yankee to
the backbone.

Barbicane had made a large fortune as a timber merchant.
Being nominated director of artillery during the war, he proved
himself fertile in invention. Bold in his conceptions, he
contributed powerfully to the progress of that arm and gave an
immense impetus to experimental researches.

He was personage of the middle height, having, by a rare
exception in the Gun Club, all his limbs complete. His strongly
marked features seemed drawn by square and rule; and if it be
true that, in order to judge a man's character one must look at
his profile, Barbicane, so examined, exhibited the most certain
indications of energy, audacity, and _sang-froid_.

At this moment he was sitting in his armchair, silent, absorbed,
lost in reflection, sheltered under his high-crowned hat-- a
kind of black cylinder which always seems firmly screwed upon
the head of an American.

Just when the deep-toned clock in the great hall struck eight,
Barbicane, as if he had been set in motion by a spring, raised
himself up. A profound silence ensued, and the speaker, in a
somewhat emphatic tone of voice, commenced as follows:

"My brave, colleagues, too long already a paralyzing peace has
plunged the members of the Gun Club in deplorable inactivity.
After a period of years full of incidents we have been compelled