The worst of
it was that he had not only boldly proclaimed his alleged discovery to
the world at large but he had even explained all about it with the well
known easy pomposity that "Science" sometimes ventures to assume. The
consequences of all this may be readily guessed. The Baltimore Gun Club
had split up immediately into two violently opposed parties. Those
gentlemen who regularly conned the scientific magazines, took every word
of the learned Professor's dispatch for gospel--or rather for something
of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly
advanced scientific developments of the day. But the others, who never
read anything but the daily papers and who could not bear the idea of
losing Barbican, laughed the whole thing to scorn. Belfast, they said,
had seen as much of the Projectile as he had of the "Open Polar Sea,"
and the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though asserted with all
the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific
slang.
The meeting held in the Club House, 24 Monument Square, Baltimore, on
the evening of the 13th, had been therefore disorderly in the highest
degree. Long before the appointed hour, the great hall was densely
packed and the greatest uproar prevailed.
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