CHAPTER XIII.
AT THE CLOSE OF WHICH J.T. MASTON UTTERS AN EPIGRAM.
Time went on, however, and very likely also the works of Barbicane and Capt. Nicholl who were going on also under these very surprising conditions, no one knew where.
How was it possible, it was asked, that an operation which required the establishment of a considerable iron foundry, the erection of high blast furnaces, capable of melting a mass of metal a million times as large as the marine corps cannon of 27 centimeters, and a projectile weighing 180,000 tons, all of which necessitated the employment of several thousand workmen, their transport, their management, etc., —yes, how was it possible that such an operation could go on without the interested world getting any knowledge of it. In which part of the Old or New
