CHAPTER III


EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATION


It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the last
words of the honorable president-- the cries, the shouts, the
succession of roars, hurrahs, and all the varied vociferations
which the American language is capable of supplying. It was a
scene of indescribable confusion and uproar. They shouted, they
clapped, they stamped on the floor of the hall. All the weapons
in the museum discharged at once could not have more violently set
in motion the waves of sound. One need not be surprised at this.
There are some cannoneers nearly as noisy as their own guns.

Barbicane remained calm in the midst of this enthusiastic
clamor; perhaps he was desirous of addressing a few more words
to his colleagues, for by his gestures he demanded silence,
and his powerful alarum was worn out by its violent reports.
No attention, however, was paid to his request. He was presently
torn from his seat and passed from the hands of his faithful
colleagues into the arms of a no less excited crowd.

Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted
that the word "impossible" in not a French one. People have
evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is
easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they
are overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane's proposition