The captain, as a practical man equal to all difficulties,began to write with frightful rapidity. Divisions and multiplications grew under his fingers; the figures were like hail on the white page. Barbicane watched him, while Michel Ardan nursed a growing headache with both hands.
"Very well?" asked Barbicane, after some minutes'silence.
"Well!" replied Nicholl; every calculation made, v zero,that is to say, the speed necessary for the projectile on leaving the atmosphere, to enable it to reach the equal point of attraction, ought to be—"